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THE DERBYITES 
 
 AND 
 
 THE COALITION 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHES. 
 
 BEING A SECOND EDITION OF THE 
 
 "HISTORY OF THE SESSION 1852-3/^ 
 
 LONDON: 
 TEUBNEE & CO. 12 PATEENOSTEE EOW. 
 
 1854. 
 
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 DEDICATION. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA WALMSLEY, 
 
 M.P. FOR LElCESTEll. 
 
 A Book, -written to illustrate the present defective system 
 of the British Parliament, is properly dedicated to that 
 Member of the Parliament most distinctly identified with the 
 question of "Refoim," and this book is therefore dedicated to 
 Sir Joshua Walmsley by 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/derbyitescoalitiOOwhitrich 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The contents of this volume consist of a series of newspaper 
 articles (appearing principally in the Leader), written from 
 week to week during the last session of Parliament ; and they 
 are now republished in a collected form in the hope that, as 
 they sketch Parliament from a hitherto unoccupied point of 
 view, they may serve, in some slight way, the cause of Parlia- 
 mentary Reform. For the sake of the purpose, that public to 
 whom the appeal is made may overlook or forgive the faults of 
 a work made up in such a manner. 
 
 London : Octoher, 1853. 
 
^f California- 
 
 HISTORY OF THE^SESSION 1852-3, 
 
 A PAELIAMENTARY RETROSPECT. 
 
 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S.* 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 An argument invariably used by our great statesmen against 
 the proposition of annual Parliaments and of triennial Parlia- 
 ments is, that it takes, at the very least, two sessions to accli- 
 mate a new Member to the moral atmosphere of the House. 
 Perhaps the argument is a very weak one, since the atmosphere 
 of the House may be very deficient in moral oxygen, from too 
 much using up ; and since the rough vigour of new brooms, 
 provided the supply of new brooms can be kept up, may be 
 worth more than the symmetrical and leisurely sweeping of 
 practised and somewhat scrubby besoms. But the argument, 
 at least, shows that there is an understood supposition that the 
 new Member is but a "Fuchs," or "Freshman," for a year or 
 two after taking the oaths : that a Peel, if a Fuchs, is a less 
 desirable legislator than a Sibthorp, if a seasoned " Bursch ; " 
 and with the sense that you are all, therefore, in everybody's 
 estimation, a set of rather ridiculous greenhorns, you may be 
 disposed, having had a week or two to recover from the intoxica- 
 tion of your senatorial glories, to listen deferentially to the 
 hints of an experienced " stranger," who, as one of the public, 
 and in his House of Commons capacity, is interested in your 
 
 * The issue of these papers was commenced on the 14th August , 
 1852, and continued weekly. All the articles of the series are, however, 
 not given in this republication. 
 
 B 
 
2 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 
 
 good behaviour. Doubtless there is a species of wisdom to be 
 learned only by repeatedly playing the fool ; and a perfect 
 " Guide to the House of Commons" would no more turn a raw 
 Jones at once into a Tom Duncombe (the greatest tactician 
 who ever sat in the House), or an unknown Smith into a Ralph 
 Bernal, suavest and keenest of all chairmen of Committees, 
 than a map of Paris would teach an Alderman good French. 
 But the House of Commons has its esoteric and exoteric faiths 
 and faces ; and if the neophytes get a few " wrinkles" as they 
 approach the threshhold, they may be able to pass muster very 
 much sooner than they or their constituents could reasonably 
 have expected, among the venerable priests, in the adytum^ who 
 have blundered their own way to initiation. People who study 
 the " Reports" have no more idea of the House of Commons 
 than the reader of a newspaper criticism on an Adelphi per- 
 formance has of the Adelphi troupe. The House is a great 
 theatre, with its green-room as well as its stage. It is a great 
 club, all in all, in itself and to itself, with its own heroes, its 
 own way of thought, and its own way of talk. Cut off from 
 the mass of the nation by the restricted suffrage whence it pro- 
 ceeds, and compelled, by its forms, and the presence of Ministers 
 of the Crown, to follow official ends, the English House of Com- 
 mons is in no respect a "popular assembly;" and no man will 
 succeed in it who does not remember that fact. Ah ! but, says 
 Jones, I come from three hundred thousand people, and I'll 
 talk at the nation over the head of the Speaker. Anterior 
 Joneses have tried ; and have not only collapsed in the House, 
 but have failed altogether of public good. Reform the House, 
 by all means ; but meanwhile, if you go there, Jones, go to 
 make the most of it as it is, and to manage it to your own ends 
 (otherwise those of your constituents), in spite of it. 
 
 There is one preliminary new men should pay some attention 
 to. Those of the new Members who are not new men, in the 
 sense of being practised to fight through public work in public 
 places, do not need the hint ; but it is indispensable for others. 
 There should be a medical examination and a medical certificate 
 for all new men facing the House of Commons. Clearly, great 
 physique is one of the conditions of success in a life of action ; 
 and in the modern career of a man who works with his genera- 
 tion, there is more veritable bodily labour than is undergone 
 by a soldier in a campaign. Mark the men who win in public 
 life ; and you will see that they are all men of the enduring 
 build. It seems a truism ; but very few people observe this, 
 and, at any rate, not one in ten thousand regulates his "choice 
 of life" by a reference to his anatomy. I don't mean big men 
 or broad men. I mean men with large heads (proportionate 
 to the trunk), thick necks, and deep chests. Other sort of men 
 may write great books, or start the ideas for the men of action ; 
 
SlIfTS to NEW M.P. S. 3 
 
 but this sort of man only succeeds in action. These are the 
 men who " get on" in the world, commercial or political. " In- 
 dustry," the key to all success, is only endurance ; and endurance 
 is a tangible physical quality which no sermons and no per- 
 sonal resolves can convey to a man. 
 
 Force and vigour — pluck— are the certain accompaniments 
 of a special general conformation of the hinder part of the head 
 and of the neck ; and these qualities are to the forehead — to 
 the thinking and creative qualities—just what the tender is to 
 , the locomotive, supplying all the coals. A certain animalism 
 is indispensable to the effect, in moving masses of men, of pure 
 intellectuality ; and so true is this, that great defects, so con- 
 sidered abstractedly, of character, are necessary to political 
 leaders — that, in short, the great thinkers, who are great by 
 force of the exclusively pure intellect, cannot succeed in public 
 life at all. This is a theory, like most of its kind, to be tested 
 hj application to the men around us ; and it is worth nothing 
 if it is not true of the prominent leaders in our English politics. 
 The Premier m esse"^ and the Premiers in posse are certainly 
 illustrations. A Premier reaches his altitude, in these days of 
 oligarchical supremacies, by influence — by impressing himself 
 on those around him ; and only the strong, forcible, enduring 
 man is equal to that most enormous and wearying of human 
 labours, diplomatically and assiduously " making friends." 
 It is not a new distinction, that, between men of thought 
 and men of action — between the oflScial engrossers of Acts 
 of Parliament and the poets who have decreed the truths 
 on which statutes rest ; but it is new that the gentlemen who 
 are thinking of the " honour of a seat" need not wait for expe- 
 rience to test their capacity to work out in labour their dreams 
 of a career. They can obtain the knowledge by measuring 
 their anatomies against the current Pitts and Peels of their 
 day. 
 
 All this appears only to apply to a very few ; since every 
 new M.P. does not aim at being Premier. But it applies to 
 all. It is a question of physique as to the fitness of every 
 man, if fitted in respect to brains, for the wear and tear of 
 popular agitation — House of Commons life being an "agita- 
 tion," though now and again, only, " popular." Certainly, to 
 the man who goes into the House of Commons as he would go 
 into a club, because it is " the right thing" to belong to it, and 
 who contemplates a lounging career of back benches and si- 
 lence, the specification of any physical condition is needless. 
 Such persons, lordlings and squires, are not fit for public life, 
 because the choice of such a career betrays the want of common 
 intellect and the absence of common honesty ; and I am speak- 
 
 * Lord Derby. 
 
4 HINTS TO NEW M.P. S. 
 
 ing in reference to the average new men elected, possessed of 
 presentable ability to judge on plain matters and between com- 
 peting leaders, and who comfort their conscience with the con- 
 viction that they have principles to work out, and that they can 
 be of service to their country. 
 
 If they have been at work before they saw the hustings — if 
 they have been barristers, railway royalties, busy merchants, 
 busy not only in the counting-house but in the public business 
 of their localities, they know precisely what amount of physique 
 and what nice care of the best of frames is needed to stand the 
 rush and crush of competitive existence. It is not a question 
 whether the body can " stand it ;" it is a question whether the 
 physical nature is such that the man can face, fight with, con- 
 trol, or at least keep abreast of, the crowds of rough, violent, 
 fierce natures to be met in every melee^ small and large, at 
 committees and in public meetings. It is a question not only 
 ^' Shall I last so many years if I work so hard and live so and 
 so?" but "Am I the sort of man to impress myself on others, 
 and to stand out of the crowd of despised common-place?" 
 That is entirely a question to be answered by the beat of the 
 pulse. 
 
 See what the fatigue of public life is — for those who mean 
 to succeed in it. It is a sort of business in which so much work 
 will bring such and such a return. Position in the House of 
 Commons is what Members who are practical men must aim 
 at : and position is only accorded to those who labour hardest. 
 In fact, those who give themselves up to the House entirely, 
 induce the House to give itself up to them. Mr. Disraeli has 
 lived in the House for twelve sessions. Sir Kobert Peel was 
 the " greatest Member of Parliament ever known." Lord John 
 Russell even talks in private with the House of Commons pe- 
 roratory twang. Mr. Hume is liked by both sides and all 
 parties, because in the hottest agitation he was deferential to 
 the House : and because his individual labours have enhanced 
 incalculably the aggregate estimation of the whole body. 
 Among the lesser gods reward is proportionate to capacity for 
 work. The Wilson Pattens, Ralph Bernals, the Greenes, and 
 the Baineses, and the Thornleys, work for the House, perhaps 
 with results of which the public is not directly sensible, in the 
 assortment, privately, of public business ; and the reward is not 
 simply in the sense of virtuous jog-trotism, but in the smiles 
 which beam on them on all sides, in the acquiescence shown 
 to all their wishes, in the power granted to them in regard to 
 private bills, and in the setting aside of 1500^. a year for chair- 
 men of committees. On the other hand the men who will not 
 identify themselves with the House — who don't sit through 
 debates, who shirk committees, and who talk of their consti- 
 tuents, and give themselves the airs of persons only condescend- 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P. S. O 
 
 ing to be Members — signally fail, either of intimidating tlie 
 Senate or of gratifying themselves. Mr. Cobden, for instance, 
 has never adopted the House of Commons style or knack — 
 has never attempted to manage the House ; and hence his 
 position in the House in no way reflects his middle-class 
 power out of doors. Mr. Bright is generally Member for Man- 
 chester — seldom Member of the House — and therefore he is 
 without that power of influencing individually or generally, 
 which he should possess.* More signal instances may be ad- 
 duced of the folly of men joining a body they intend to defy. 
 Mr. George Thompson was Oh, oh'd, in his first speech, and 
 expressed his indifference to the opinions thus suggested ; and 
 he was only heard of afterwards as a failure. O'Connell 
 attempted, in turn, to bully and cajole, and never did anything 
 for Ireland in consequence. And identification with the House 
 is only to be effected by working sedulously with and for the 
 House. 
 
 Less work would make fortunes on 'Change, or fame at the 
 bar. With constituents to satisfy on the one hand, and the 
 stipulations of the House of Commons to meet on the other, 
 there is no rest. Those who have private business as well as 
 public duties to discharge, cannot meet the requirements of 
 their ofllices, and fall into the second rank of House of Commons 
 heroes ; one reason why the lords, squires, and sons of nouveaux 
 riches — the great disengaged — beat the Radicals, who have 
 generally private worlds to look after, in legislfCtive racing. 
 Those who devote themselves to the House of Commons ex- 
 clusively, to become conspicuous personages, live the hardest of 
 human lives — live such lives, no doubt, because the labour is 
 the excitement they love ; but whatever their abstract, intel- 
 lectual admiration of the function of governing the British Em- 
 pire, their qualifications for it must be dependent upon the 
 report of their physiologist. Even when men are gifted with 
 the iron frame of a Hume, or a Graham, or a Peel, they must 
 exist by the most stringent rules of feeding — they must treat 
 themselves as trainers treat racers. There was a time when 
 the newspaper report could be — " Mr. Sheridan staggered and 
 said ;" when Fox would drop in after thirty hours of picquet 
 and talk at fever heat ; and when Mr. Pitt would be leaning 
 over a basin behind the Speaker's chair, clearing himself of the 
 port, and arranging the argument with which he would, by 
 and bye, destroy " the talents." But the House of Commons 
 in those days was only a magnificent debating society. In 
 these days, our Russells, and Gladstones, and Disraelis live by 
 a regimen ; dull, perhaps, in proportion as they dwell in rigid 
 
 * And which, before the Session of 1852-3 was over, he in a marked 
 degree acquired, having gi-eatly changed his style. 
 
6 BINTS TO NE-V7 M.P.'s. 
 
 decencies ; but thus only enabled to humour the g^enius of the 
 epoch — a decidedly respectable and slow one. A glass of sherry^ 
 in our era, might destroy a week's work, or change the fate of 
 a debate. Eighteen hours out of every twenty-four must be 
 sacrificed by all men meaning great results in a brisk world ; 
 and none can keep their legs, in such a career, without shunning 
 most of the delights ciyilisation provides for humanity with- 
 out a '^ purpcse*" 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P. S. 
 
 HINTS TO NEW M.P;S. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Perhaps my definition of a "Member of Parliament" may 
 have struck you as being about as complex as Imlac's defi- 
 nition of a poet ; and a stray Rasselas might have closed my 
 last Letter with the exclamation, " Enough ! thou hast con- 
 vinced me no man can ever be an M.P." But definitions such 
 as these are like Sam Slick's rule for shooting coons — they only 
 amount to a suggestion to "aim high." Nobody ever reaches 
 his standard ; but that is no reason why we should not have 
 a standard. If we did not aim high above the practical coon, 
 we should never even bring it down. 
 
 I take by the hand the model M.P. I have sketched — the 
 man who has not only a head to think, but a body fit for work- 
 ing out the thought — and I will tell him how to succeed and 
 to satisfy himself in Parliament. The hints apply to him 
 whether he aims at a peerage or at the membership for Fins- 
 bury — the two extrem'es of political ambition; whether he 
 thinks he can be a Disraeli, or only a Forbes Mackenzie ; whe- 
 ther Premier or whipper-in ; whether a debater like Osborne, 
 or a steady committee-man like Sir John Buller ; whether he 
 is a man of genius, or only a keen man of the world ; whether 
 he is honest or dishonest, — is bound to a party or pledged to 
 mankind. The House of Commons is only to be approached, 
 wooed, and won, in one way, by all sorts of persons. It is 
 a body without any principles or any prejudices, except against 
 bores. It is utterly indifierent to the creed, and country, 
 and character, of the new man. He who comes to it with a 
 good reputation has no better chance than he who besieges it 
 with a bad one. It rejects all pretensions it has not of itself 
 justified, and all fame it has not itself conferred ; judging most 
 severely and critically those who have attained position in- 
 dependent of it, and of whom it consequently expects and 
 exacts much in justification. It has no principles, because, as 
 a corporation, it has no conscience; and hence it not only 
 endures, but, if they are presentable and useful, applauds 
 notorious rogues — rogues political and rogues social. It black- 
 balls and sends to Coventry many ; but they are men who have 
 
8 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 
 
 offended on large or small pretexts against its own morale, 
 which means its own comfort and pleasure. Therefore, he 
 who enters newly the House of Commons may consider that he 
 is taking his first step in his career. To what he may have 
 been, or may have done before, the House is indifferent. He 
 may have been a scamp or a saint — it matters not : the club 
 deals only with sins against itself, and the merit that is useful 
 to it. He may be very rich or very poor — a millionaire or an 
 adventurer — his chances are precisely equal. This is not the 
 common notion, but observation shows that it is the correct 
 one; and that, indeed, in all its judgments, the House of 
 Commons is governed by the utmost impartiality and repub- 
 lican enlightenment. Intense philosophic selfishness has no 
 small weaknesses or petty prejudices. Composed, as the 
 lower House is, largely of an aristocratic element, there is 
 nothing of the " snob " about it in the aggregate. Mr. 
 Anstey goes about saying, " I was counted out because I was 
 poor;" but Mr. Disraeli was always poorer than Mr. Anstey, 
 and has been, de facto, Premier of England. London society suf- 
 fered Mr. Hudson ; but the House of Commons, from the first, 
 laughed at him, and at last howled him down. The House of 
 Commons would not listen to Mr. Stanley (the present Lord) 
 when, with all the prestige of his n?vme and lineage, he at- 
 tempted to teach it about sugar; but the House of Commons 
 cheered the first great sugar speech of Mr. Economist Wilson, 
 although Mr. Wilson was fresh from a hatter's shop, and 
 smelt of " the Borough." The House of Commons hates Man- 
 chester; but it jeered Baillie Cochrane's aristocratic attacks on 
 Cottonopolis to that extent that Baillie Cochrane gave up 
 being Pitt, and took to idiotic novels, while it burst into an 
 honest and hearty sympathetic shout when Mr. Brotherton, 
 pleading for the Ten Hours' Act, said, with the tears in his 
 eyes, '' Sir, I am now a Member of Parliament, but I was once 
 a poor, wretched, half-starved factory boy." Again ; the House 
 of Commons detested Feargus O'Connor; but not because he 
 was a Chartist. Indeed, from what I know of it, the House 
 would rather like, and would, I believe, carefully listen to, a 
 genuine working-man Chartist. 
 
 It is odd ; but the clever men always blunder, at first, with the 
 House of Commons. The men of genius always attempt, as 
 green genius attempts in other directions, to take it by storm. 
 Disraeli went at the Senate with a rush, to talk Alroyisms ; 
 and the yelling laughter which greeted him made him a great 
 man — it gave him so much to obliterate ! That was a spas- 
 modic saying — " The time will come when you shall hear me ; " 
 but to redeem the boast a system was necessary, and Disraeli, 
 a man essentially of an Italian and intriguing genius, soon 
 found that the House was not to be bullied out of applause. 
 ~" ' force in his career ; he has got on 
 
HIXTS TO NEW M.P. S. U 
 
 by sheer liard work, on an exact system, biding his time, ever 
 at hand, and never missing an opportunity. He has never 
 been guilty of an impulse since impulse plunged him into 
 the greatest parliamentary failure on record; and that his 
 system is worth studying is suggested by the fact that it has 
 been successful — successful despite drawbacks — to say nothing 
 of his race and creed — which would have crushed most other 
 men. He knew what he had to overcome, and calculated the 
 cost; invested, waited, and got the profits. And the parlia- 
 mentary system essential to triumph is so invariable, that Mr. 
 Disraeli, because he does what Sir Robert Peel did, is accused 
 of being an imitator of Sir Robert Peel. The imitation is 
 said to consist in the assiduous complimenting of everybody. 
 That was poor Sir Robert's forte ; a trick coming natural to 
 him as a parvenu, and as never certain of what party he 
 would be among in a month. As a parvenu, too, Mr. Disraeli 
 finds it indispensable ; despises the meaness of the sycophancy, 
 but is constrained to resort to it because he knows its results 
 are desirable. Men, secure and safe in their own positions — 
 either Lords J. Russell or Derby — may indulge haughtiness, 
 and be reserved in laudations ; but Mr. Disraeli bows to the 
 statue of Jehovah, while worshipping Jove, because he does not 
 know if his turn won't come again. 
 
 Another instance of a man of genius endeavouring to take 
 the House of Commons by assault, and being conspicuously 
 rebuffed, is supplied by Sir Edward Lytton, of whom it now 
 repaains to be seen whether he appreciates the sagacity of under- 
 mining. Sir Edward entered Parliament for the express pur- 
 pose of making a sensation, and of making use of the House of 
 Commons' platform for his own intellectual glorification. The 
 intention, always quickly detected, implies a conceited con- 
 tempt for the House itself, and is always punished by vigorous 
 snubbing. Sir Edward soared wonderfully, but he couldn't 
 get the House to look up. He made undoubtedly fine, rattling, 
 sound, witty speeches ; and there was no doubt whatever that 
 he was an acquisition, a suitable representative man, and a 
 possible popular minister. But the pretence offended — the 
 incessant evident desire to render the House subordinate to Sir 
 Edward Bulwer — the prominence given to the individuality, 
 which would not identify itself with the whole body — disgusted ; 
 and Sir Edward never became a great "parliament man." 
 He would not work ; that is, he scorned the rehearsals ; he was 
 always on the stage, stagy, and always insisting on being 
 brilliant. He was, in short, an outsider in the club ; he 
 wouldn't join the rest, think, or affect to think, like the 
 rest ; and — he talked to the " gallery," not to the " honour- 
 able gentlemen opposite," and grievously offended the House 
 by indicating indirectly that he thought less of them than 
 
10 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 
 
 of "the great public." Sir Edward's parliamentary failure 
 is often stupidly adduced as a proof of literary men being 
 unfit for the House of Commons. The theory arises in for- 
 getfulness of the fact that most of the literary men who 
 go into the House of Commons, do not go there to become 
 House of Commons personages. What they do not aim at, 
 they do not attain ; and, of course, episodical appearances in 
 debate, straggling speeches, and lounges about committee- 
 rooms, do not produce that effect which induces competitors to 
 make way for them. The Penates of St. Stephen's are jealous 
 gods, and require an exclusive devotion. A great author who 
 won't work for House of Commons position and fame, is no 
 more entitled to be a leader there than a great lawyer who 
 doesn't give up the law can expect to head lobbies. The 
 House of Commons heroes, the Pitts, Grahams, Peels, Russells, 
 are the men who live for the House of Commons, and are am- 
 bitious of its honours only. Even Disraeli wrote Coningshy in 
 a recess : and since he saw power looming in the future, he has 
 not written at all, except with an aim at House of Commons 
 ends, as in the Political Life of Bentinck, which was an appeal 
 to a party. 
 
 The House of Commons insists upon its own style ; and will 
 not " hear, hear," the literary style, and got-up brilliancies of 
 the literary member; and it will not intrust a literary man 
 with any sort of leadership, because it distrusts all but those 
 who look at the public and at the Government from its own 
 point of view, and in whose chieftainship, therefore, for its own 
 purposes, it can confide. It, therefore, puts down a Bulwer 
 just as it puts down a Bright (as a man of commerce, and 
 member for Manchester) or a Kelly (as a lawyer), as a man 
 not identifying himself with it ; as a man who moves out of 
 the Commons' circle, and has other business, which is not 
 Commons' business. These aggregate instincts do not corre- 
 spond with the individual influences, since most members are 
 sometimes, in some occupation, portions of the public ; but 
 they are unmistakable in their operation : and this need not be 
 wondered at, since all large bodies are possessed of a collective 
 tone, so to speak, on all matters applying to their collective in- 
 terest. But though the House won't place the literary mem- 
 bers in the first rank, it is an error to suppose they are such 
 failures as to be disliked. If they are pretentious, mere lite- 
 rary men, they are snubbed; but for the pretentiousness, not 
 for the literature. If they, in their degree, and at their 
 leisure, appear in a parliamentary melee, and make a good 
 speech, adopting as nearly as they can the cue of the place, 
 they are listened to deferentially, and applauded. Mr. Macau- 
 lay was surely no failure ! Even Peel did not draw such 
 audiences. When it was known Macaulay would speak, 
 
HINTS TO KEW M.P.'S. 11 
 
 and it always was known, clubs would empty and drawing- 
 rooms would be left to the ladies; and at eleven o'clock — for 
 Macaulay would never deign to speak until the audience was a 
 large one — there would be no seat vacant. He was watched, 
 listened to, and cheered by a rapt audience, who were enjoying, 
 with cultivated taste, a finished essay. Its polish, its complete- 
 ness, and its exhaustion of the topic in hand, excited universal 
 admiration. But then the House saw more than a mere lite- 
 rary man : they saw an accomplished scholar, a man of learning, 
 of judgment, a man who served a direct and useful purpose in 
 pouring out his mind. They saw a man whose intellectual 
 qualities were greater than those of their own Sir Robert Peel, 
 for Sir Robert Peel could not have spoken such an essay. But 
 which would they follow in a political crisis I Sir Robert ; be- 
 cause they did not want in their leader a brilliant man only ; 
 because Sir Robert had passed his life in studying the relations 
 between them and the world ; because Sir Robert was a man of 
 the world, understanding them, men of the world; and be- 
 cause, having studied the trade of governing, and studied 
 nothing else, they could have confidence in his advice in a 
 political emergency. Instinct — the intellect of masses — dic- 
 tates their choice ; and while they admire a Macaulay, they 
 follow Peel. Had Mr. Macaulay given up to the House what 
 was meant for the House's constituents, he would have been a 
 Peel too ; and, who can tell — perhaps vice mrsd ? 
 
 " Literary men," in short, must cease to be literary men (it 
 is a wonder men of literature do not put down the horrible 
 phrase) before they can lead political parties. In other words, 
 they must become ordinary men of the world — worldly — or, in 
 other words, must learn how to manage ordinary men, which is 
 not learned in closets. Burke carried all before him while he 
 remained a politician ; but he got sublimated into the philoso- 
 pher, and degenerated into a " dinner bell." Sheridan observed 
 this, and gained by the fact. Kelly, in his memoirs, relates that 
 he one day told Sheridan that he (Sheridan) daren't write another 
 comedy, because he was afraid of the author of The School for 
 Scandal. But, clearly, Sheridan, who was ambitious of poli- 
 tical distinction and whose managership was regarded as an 
 amusement, avoided writing simply to talk with more effect. 
 Gibbon, in his remarks about Sheridan's Warren Hastings' 
 oration, confesses that the powers then developed would require 
 a life of practice; and Gibbon, when an M.P., was a back 
 bencher, from his consciousness that his great intellect was in 
 a world where it was but as a child's. Sir James Mackintosh 
 is always referred to as among the authors who failed in Par- 
 liament, and it is supposed he failed because he was not a 
 leader. As a man of the world, as a politician, he was without 
 influence in the House ; but he was admired and cheered as a 
 
12 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 
 
 wise, thoughtful, honest man. The same is to be said of 
 Jeffrey, who had no business (though a good deal of practice) 
 at the bar, much less in the House of Commons. As I said in 
 the last paper, the great "public man "must have defects of 
 character to suit him to his position. What could the Whigs 
 do with Burke when they found he was a man who would talk 
 *' eternal justice" about Marie Antoinette, forgetful of the use 
 the lie volution was to the party ? What could Brougham do 
 with Sir James Mackintosh, whose every oration commenced 
 with an apology for his "hot youth's" (and he a Scotchman!) 
 "Vindiciaj?" The "literary man" talks abstractions, and is 
 therefore dangerous. Thus the House of Commons condemned 
 Peel for making George Smythe an Under Foreign Secretary, 
 because the House has a nervous horror, whatever its admira- 
 tion, of a young man who used to rise in a foreign debate, 
 stand bolt upright, shut his eyes, and pour forth epigrammatic 
 eloquence, sounding like a translation from the French of 
 Vergniaud. The " practical " common-place man for the 
 House, which thinks well of Forbes Mackenzie for helping 
 Lord Derby on with his coat, and cheered Lord Henry Lennox 
 for bringing in a glass of water — a son of a duke, too ! — to Mr. 
 Disraeli, while that exhausted statesman was dealing with 
 Direct Taxation in his late immortal demonstration of the 
 lunacy of Protection. 
 
HINTS TO Ts'EW M.P.'s. 13 
 
 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 
 
 CHAPTER Til. 
 
 If I have induced you to agree with me that those men 
 who go to the House of Commons only with a view to give 
 gratification to their constituents are almost certain to be dead 
 failures, I may rely upon your approval of the rules I would 
 lay down for parliamentary success. It is certainly awkward 
 that you cannot afibrd altogether to forget 'your constituents, 
 inasmuch as you have to keep your eye on your re-election ; 
 and to a certain extent, I am bound to advise you to endeavour 
 to please them. The nature of the compliment must be en- 
 tirely dependent upon the character of the electoral body of 
 which you are the soul. If you result from a small consti- 
 tuency, you can please them best — whether you come from a 
 Lord Londonderry or a St. Albans — by returning or continuing 
 the bribery they commenced : with the individual, by looking 
 after the red ribbons and spare attacheships ; with the hundred 
 or two, by activity after the heads of the excise and customs 
 department ; and in discharging your obligations in these di- 
 rections you may console yourself with the reflection that 
 while you are convincing those who bought and those who sold 
 you that you were worth the transaction, you are not neces- 
 sarily interfering with those pursuits wherein members win the 
 applause of other members. If you are so unhappy as to have 
 been exposed by the votes of a great town to all the anomalies 
 accompanying the presence of a " popular member " in an oli- 
 garchical assembly, you will assuredly have a difficult card to 
 play : and it is in particular for such members that these 
 hints are intended. There are three courses open to you ; and 
 it may be mentioned that Sir Robert Peel first discovered the 
 great three courses carte of statesmanship when he sat for Ox- 
 ford, which is even more unmanageable than a Riding. You 
 may take the attitude of Mr. Bright sitting for Manchester, 
 stand up for your dignity as the voice of half a milion, sneer 
 at the country gentlemen, patronize the Minister, and get de- 
 tested, accordingly. Or you may do as Sir Thomas Birch did, 
 sitting for Liverpool ; never intrude in debate at all, dine with 
 the Whigs, get plenty of patronage, and, after seven years, get 
 
14 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 
 
 summarily kicked out. These are the two extreme courses. But 
 there is the compromise of delicate finesse whereby to satisfy 
 Manchester and yet manage the House ; preserving your prin- 
 ciples and gaining a hearing, and, so, really pushing your 
 political objects within reach of the leverage of office. Among 
 the great Radical party, it is difficult to mention one man who 
 fully illustrates the wisdom of the latter course ; but certainly, 
 Mr. Bernal Osborne, whose Radicalism is as little open to doubt 
 as that of Sir Joshua Walmsley, sets a tolerably good example 
 of what a Tribune should be in the Capitol. A Tribune, how- 
 ever, who has been in the Lancers, and who got the tone of 
 "society" in other places than the Reform Club smoking-room, 
 does riot come to hand to lead the people, every day ; and ad- 
 mirable as it is to see the light dragoon member for Middlesex 
 prancing into a debate in search of liberal forage, it will occur 
 to Mr. Wm. Williams that much of Mr. Osborne's success is 
 attributable to his having studied the first gentlemen in the 
 world in their ladies' drawing-rooms — in a word, to his under- 
 standing the nature of his opponents. Yet, as the Cobdens 
 seek the House of Commons and the encounter, they ought to 
 try to comprehend the enemy, too — by opportunities at Bel- 
 lamy's and in Westboume Terrace, if" nous autres " "stem the 
 tide of democracy" with street doors and domestic Lord Charles 
 Russells in Belgravia. 
 
 What is true of one man among them is true of the whole 
 Radical party — the liberal Irish members included. Miss 
 Martineau, in her history, says that the glory of the Radicals 
 has been their individuality. But take the fates of the men 
 and their principles, and this individuality will be found to 
 have been their curse. The Radicals have been a number of 
 men — they have never been a parliamentary party ; and while 
 this has not advanced their cause, it has not even advanced 
 themselves. As it is in our own day, so has it been since 1835 
 — since the aristocracy first recovered the shock of the Reform 
 Bill and discovered that they were quite safe. We know what 
 the Radical (in Parliament) party, sometimes so called, now is, 
 what it can do, and what it has recently done. We know, un- 
 doubtedly, that it talks very nearly the thoughts of the 
 masses ; but we know, assuredly, that its legislative results, 
 direct or indirect, are very limited. Why ? This Radical party 
 — this number of men who would vote votes such as Whigs 
 and Tories could not give — has never been less than one hun- 
 dred strong — or, with the liberal Irish (national) members, a 
 fourth of the working House of Commons. Its worth and its 
 position are utterly disproportionate to its capacity for affecting 
 divisions. The cause lies in the fact that the big towns select a 
 superior class of intellectual men, or positive, dogmatic men, for 
 their representatives: that, consequently, there is no rank and 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 15 
 
 file — that is, no inevitable party organisation. The Tories and 
 Whigs — aristocracies and the nominees of aristocracies — are, as 
 parties, composed necessarily of a mass of mediocrities, and the 
 crowd comes naturally under the protection of two or three 
 " leaders," conspicuous among the many for reliableness and 
 parliamentary aptitude. But the Radicals are all clever 
 or crotchetty — and they are, therefore, an army of captains 
 — a squadron of field-marshals — a "clump of spears" (each 
 spear wielded by an independent knight) — which, when the 
 battle begins, is certain to radiate into adventurous isola- 
 tions. Well, what is the avail of a battalion of Brights — a corps 
 of Cobdens — riding separately at the closed squares of the com- 
 pact oligarchies, who, though they make the mistake which the 
 Marquis of Rockingham pointed out, of fighting one another for 
 a monopoly of that which would suffice for them both, if they had 
 but the sense to unite,have always the discretion to closetogether 
 when a riskful Radical foray is really meant ? The individual dis- 
 tinction is apparently great. A Sir William Molesworth reads his 
 speeches and unfurls his cambrics with great ^clat; and archaeo- 
 logical members speculate, as he talks Benthamism in italics, 
 whether it isn't a pity Manchester has displaced philosophical 
 Radicalism. The strangers' gallery, when Mr. Roebuck sits 
 down, says, " Gad, he did give it 'em, didn't he ?" Manchester, 
 when crushed into the Free Trade Hall, is convinced that Mr. 
 Bright carries all before him at Westminster, and sees in neat 
 Mr. Milner Gibson the personification of a hero of debate. 
 The smoking-room receives Bernal Osborne after a speech 
 with a shout, and declares that that last *'mot" will live for 
 ever. Bristol Berkeley does Thersites to the admiration of a 
 placid ten o'clock house ; and even the Marquis of Blandford 
 might long to have seen such an orator over nuts with Windham, 
 or looser model Whig of the revolutionary epoch. When Sir 
 Joshua Walmsley delivers his elaborate and gentlemanly pro- 
 test against the British Constitution, there is not one who does 
 not admire the sad earnestness of the man ; and Squires like 
 Tyrrel would confess that this was an improvement upon the 
 vehemencies of Orator Hunt. But, in the long run, cui bono ? 
 Each knight has his own banner, and cries his own cry ; and 
 the party is sneered at, and the principle does not get on, for 
 the fire is insufficient for all the irons thrust in. Party com- 
 pleteness is sacrificed to personal glory, and the result is that 
 the Radicals have not carried a single point (for Free-trade was 
 not a Radical test) in their whole history. Owing their advent 
 to Parliament to the Whigs, the Radicals have lived in the 
 traditional supposition that, crowded as their ranks always have 
 been with abilities, and really heading a popular movement, 
 their only function was to oppose. Radicals opposing and 
 Whigs proposing ; and so leaving to the Russells and Greys the 
 
16 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 
 
 merit and the honoiar of whatever instalment of advance was 
 accomplished. Take for instance the records of the " Reform" 
 attempts from the date of the "Charter" to the last " Hume's 
 motion," and candour must admit that whatever the faults of 
 the people, the sorrows of the suffrage question are mainly 
 attributable to the bad " leading" in Parliament. Mr. Cobden, 
 in his late letter to Sharman Crawford, suggests an organis- 
 ation and a party to get the ballot. Will Mr. Cobden begin 
 the sacrifices necessary to such an organisation, and forego 
 idiosyncracies — say for five years 1 Supposing the Radicals 
 agreed together to attend to but this one question for the whole 
 of next Session ? Probably they would drive Lord Derby from 
 power, and the Whigs into conviction, in three months ; and in 
 three years after they had got the ballot, they would have at- 
 tained most other things they now vaguely aim at. 
 
 The moral of this argument about the Radicals is, that no 
 member can be a parliamentary personage unless he combine 
 with his individual impressiveness the prestige of distinct party 
 power and position. By and bye, when the House of Commons 
 consists of men all equally amenable to the rigid public judgment 
 of extensive constituencies — that is to say, when votes begin to 
 be given, not for classes, but for the nation — the consideration 
 of the tactique essential to the senate, may be of a very dif- 
 ferent character. But, in these days, it is the ambition of utter 
 ignorance to desire an "independent" seat in the House of 
 Commons ; and when the leading journal was telling Mr. 
 Cardwell and Sir James Graham, the other day, that they ought 
 to soar above sectional politics, and aim at the lofty functions 
 of pa-rliamentary arbitrament between contending factions, the 
 leading journal was advising precisely that course which has 
 made the Radicals impotent, and which, adopted since the 
 break-up of 1846, by the Peelites (Wilkeites sans the two young 
 AVilkes), has relieved Mr. Disraeli, for the present, from all en- 
 vious apprehensions of Mr. Gladstone. The hon. gentleman 
 who rises to tell what he individually thinks of a submitted 
 motion is talking mere abstractions. If he be a Mr. Bright, 
 speaking for vast middle-class Manchester, he speaks with a 
 certain effect ; but what those thousands may do if their will 
 is not obeyed, is a vague, distant apprehension that does not 
 tell ; and meanwhile Manchester is only one man. What the 
 House of Commons needs is not to be told by wise men what is 
 best, or by democratic men what is just ; but what, the balance 
 of parties being so and so, can be done, acted upon, resolved by 
 the impending division. Lord John Russell is (I fear we may 
 begin to say was) listened to, not for his individual opinion, 
 but because the House knows he is a man who has calculated 
 what is possible and practicable under certain circumstances — 
 because it knows there are a hundred or two at his back whom 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 17 
 
 he may not have verbally consulted, but whose prejudices and 
 passions he has accurately estimated, and who are, therefore, 
 certain to follow him into the lobby. 
 
 Nobody supposes, when Mr. Disraeli suggests an argument, 
 that he is hinting at his own convictions. His merit as a 
 House of Commons leader is, that he abnegates all convictions 
 of his own ; his genius as a tactician consists in compromising 
 with the convictions of others. Lord John Russell would be 
 of no account as an individual, if he wrote to the electors of the 
 city of London, that henceforth he would be " independent," 
 and talk what he believed. Mr. Disraeli would disappear as a 
 politician if he ceased to be the manager of a party. The 
 weight of Sir James Graham in a debate arises, not from the 
 general belief that Sir James Graham is at all as clever a man as 
 the newspaper writer the morning before on the same topic, but 
 from a knowledge that circumstances may arise to hand power 
 to Sir James, and that he, anticipating and providing for this, is 
 not speaking lax truisms, but sentences to be practically applied 
 hereafter to the official working of the empire. Here is all the 
 difference between the position of statesmen like Sir James and 
 moralists — say, as Mr. Cobden. Mr. Cobden talks out his beliefs 
 in the sharp, clear, crisp sentences that delight a public meeting ; 
 and in talking these, he trusts to accident for a following — for 
 the response, which response he does not expect in the House 
 itself. Very likely the House feels that the response will be 
 heard some years hence ; but the House has as little to do with 
 the men before the age, as with the men behind the age. The 
 House, as J said in a former paper, admires intensely Mr. 
 Macaulay delivering an essay ; but they admire more, because 
 it is " business," even a Mr. Walpole delivering a 'plan. There 
 is only one instance in late history of a statesman standing 
 alone in the House of Commons, and that is in the case of Sir 
 Robert Peel, who did not leave, but was left by, his party ; and 
 even his vast individuality and personal potency did not enable 
 him to sustain his prestige and his prominence. With the minor 
 gods, individuality is idiotcy — Sibthorpeism. A mediocrity not 
 speaking by party lights is an insufferable spectacle ; and un- 
 happily it is a spectacle distinctive of Radicalism, all the Radicals 
 who are not clever, being crotchetty. Our Ewarts and Aglionbys 
 and Ansteys, insist upon their separate commands — and there 
 is the catastrophe of a count-out. The British empire has no 
 time to give itself up to Aglionbys and Ansteys. The sheerest 
 vanity alone explains this non-subsidence into a practical party. 
 Certainly there are motions which must be brought forward, 
 though they may not be carried ; but the selection should de- 
 pend on the decision of a party " caucus." An honest Radical 
 member would consider first how the wishes of his constituents 
 could be practically forwarded ; and his own distinction would 
 
 c 
 
18 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 
 
 be conditional upon the success of the whole party. Sheffield 
 can have no pride in seeing Mr. Roebuck abhorred ; but it 
 could have no objection to being successful in its politics. And 
 even Mr. Roebuck has of late confined his energies to criticism 
 — he never proposes. He has given up his old Radical rule, 
 derived from Diogenes — of praying to statues in order to ac- 
 custom himself to be refused ! 
 
 Gentlemen, newly elected by trusting hundreds, and rehearsing 
 in your studies the great orations with which you will astound 
 the senate, take these hints to heart ; select your leader, ap- 
 point your whipper-in, and then cultivate taciturnity ; and cease 
 to have a will. Believe me, that you will not be less than you 
 expected ; and your cause will become much greater. You 
 would not go into court, because you know a certain proverb, 
 to plead your own suit ; and you ought not to go into the 
 House of Commons to do that for your exclusive self, which a 
 Disraeli or a Russell, or an Osborne, or a Bright, or (if you are 
 an Irishman) a Keogh, or Dufiy (all men built for leadership), 
 may be found, upon conditions, to say with effect for you. If 
 you are clever, your cleverness will tell twice as well if you 
 speak as one of many, for then your cleverness is not an ab- 
 straction, but a power ; and if you are only a plain, passable, 
 week-day man, you will, if you are a partisan, find yourself re- 
 spected, whereas if you are so impertinent as to come forward 
 as an individuality, you will be despised, and, if it 's late, hooted 
 into an ignominy your wife will never forget, if you do. Let 
 the new Radicals, then (as other polities take care of them- 
 selves), ascertain, before November, if Radicalism be incapable 
 of an organisation. Some of the new men are, it is said, in- 
 vestigating this curious philosophical point ; and a corre- 
 spondence is reputed to be going on between advanced English- 
 men and progressing Irishmen, which may lead to the creation 
 of a powerful body in Parliament pledged to do popular work. 
 The Manchester banquet, announced for the penultimate week 
 in October, may mean a conference. The hero of the feast will 
 be he who has most crotchets to give up, and let us anticipate 
 a strife in denudition between Mr. Hume and Mr. Cobden ! The 
 apple to him who is least laden. 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 19 
 
 HINTS TO NEW M.P.U 
 
 CHTAPTER IV. 
 
 I HAVE by this time assumed that you agree with me in the 
 several propositions I have brought forward ; first, that only 
 those who are "men of the world," and have an enduring 
 physique, should go into the House of Commons ; secondly, 
 that all men, qualified by body, brains, and worldly tact, have 
 an equal chance of success in the House, if they will study 
 and conciliate the requirements of a busy assembly, bent, not 
 upon theorising, oratising, or showing ofi',but simply and solely 
 on practical government ; and, thirdly, that only those are 
 wanted in the House who are content, for the sake of the direct 
 advancement of their opinions, to merge their individuality 
 into the organisation of " a party." It has taken three epistles 
 to you to make these three points palpable and plain; and 
 whatever doubts you may have originally bad, are now, I 
 would hope, removed by a careful consideration of the personal 
 illustrations with which I have furnished you. I am not talk- 
 ing abstract maxims, I am only giving you a list of the men 
 who succeed — men whom you know and can study, at your 
 leisure, and whom reflection will induce you to imitate. 
 
 Look at the House of Commons from the right point of view 
 — as a club, composed, principally, of members of the govern- 
 ing classes, tolerably honest, but intensely prejudiced, and 
 managing to combine what they regard as public good, with 
 an immense amount of private-family-class-profit. The rela- 
 tions of the majority of the House to their constituents are 
 not rigorous : they depend for their private comfort, personal po- 
 sition, and party prosperity, but slightly upon the opinions of the 
 voters who voted for them ; and their constituents being, again, 
 but a section of the vast public, the "member" who is ranked 
 among the Whigs or the Tories never thinks and never acts 
 with the sense of national responsibility — with a deference to 
 national will. He got into Parliament to rise or fall with the 
 " party ;" and he has, consequently, a lax morale about public 
 affairs. His own existence in Parliament is a job — a sham ; 
 and English public life — a series of jobs and shams — does not 
 
 c 2 
 
20 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 
 
 startle him : and his conscience is comforted with the reflec- 
 tion that, somehow or another, the country takes care of itself 
 in spite of the inadequacy and dishonour of the Government. 
 He finds the political differences between himself and "the 
 honourable gentleman opposite " exceedingly slight, while he 
 is sure the said honourable gentleman is, privately, and apart 
 from his politics, and endurance, nay, applause, of all the shams 
 and jobs, a high-spirited, high-minded, good-tempered English 
 gentleman. There is, then, no sharp political animosity be- 
 tween "Conservative" and "Liberal Conservative," and there 
 is consequently no exalted tone in public life. The Whigs and 
 the Tories are on the same committees together ; they dine 
 together ; they even may belong to the same club. They meet 
 at common houses ; their families become interlaced ; and when 
 these are the conditions of political opposition, there is too 
 much social friendliness about it to allow it to be very honest 
 or very national. Whigs and Tories, as a mass, proceed from 
 the same class ; and, except on technicalities, they really think 
 alike. They together constitute an oligarchy — a special caste 
 which possesses the official government of England ; and, 
 in reality, they are unitedly fighting together against that na- 
 tional dictation which they read in newspapers and hear from 
 Radicals, which they defer to after long resistance, but which 
 " being unorganised," and visible only in " vile rabble" at elec- 
 tion times, they unaffectedly despise. It is all very wrong and 
 very melancholy ; but so long as these things are, let those who 
 seek Parliament remember that they are enrolling themselves, 
 not in a popular assembly whose heart beats with the pulse of 
 the nation, but in a close club, perfect in itself, largely inde- 
 pendent of out-of-doors verdicts or individuals, and therefore 
 deciding absolutely the fates of its own members. If you want 
 to revolutionise the House, work away from without ; but, 
 being a member, make a proper estimate of its composition and 
 constitution, identify yourself with it, labour with it and for it, 
 and, in a word, manage it. Think first of your party ; but 
 secondly, always of the House ; and when it is thus seen that 
 you are not there to air your individuality, you will cease at 
 once to be regarded as a 7iovus homo, whom it would be danger- 
 ous to trust and absurd to listen to. The House of Commons 
 Club looks in fact, with suspicion at every new member who is 
 not one of the oligarchy — as an intruder — a possibly hazardous 
 man, who may work like Hume or talk like Roebuck ; and it 
 is this suspicion which every new man, not a silent member by 
 right of birth or position, has in the first place to overcome. 
 As I have said in a former paper, the representative of a large 
 constituency, looking to his re-election, cannot satisfy their 
 ignorant expectations, without appearing frequently in debate, 
 to reiterate his stale opinions ; and, as I have also hinted before. 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 21 
 
 this miglit be done without long speeches, without insulting 
 the club, and without endangering personal position. But it 
 is a great out-of-doors error to suppose that the club itself re- 
 gulates its approval in proportion to display. It is not so in 
 the world, and it is not so in the House ; and, indeed, in the 
 House, the taciturn, careless, back bencher, who never appears 
 on the stage, is often the teacher in rehearsal — the prompter — 
 felt, not seen — when the curtain is up. For instance, Mr. Corne- 
 wall Lewis had more to do with the government of England, in 
 Lord John Russell's time, than Sir George Grey ; and it is said 
 Mr. Henry Baillie and Lord Lonsdale — two silent men — now 
 affect Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli more than the rest of the 
 Tory cabinet put together. Vox had a foolometer, upon whom he 
 tried his measures, just as Moliere experimented with his plays 
 upon his cook ; and in that sense, in a club, such as the House 
 of Commons, the " public" may be in reality more truly repre- 
 sented by a Colonel Sibthorpe than by a Colonel Mure. The 
 leader of the House is seldom the most intellectual man in the 
 House — the leader of the party is not at all necessarily the 
 greatest thinker, best talker, or profoundest writer, in its ranks ; 
 and, among the file, rank is accorded not at all in reference to 
 what " literary men" call intellect, and not at all in reference 
 to acquired general knowledge. Again, to use illustrations, 
 Mr. Talfourd was less a power than Mr. William Williams ; 
 Lord Mahon than Mr. Christopher. In the world we laugh, 
 and sneer at those who don't " get on," much as they may be 
 our betters in all except "getting on;" and why not in the 
 St. Stephen's Clubl 
 
 I have used the word "rehearsal" several times : — let me ex- 
 plain my meaning. I have suggested what is the real consti- 
 tution of the House of Commons ; and it suggests itself that 
 every member of that House is perfectly aware of the precise 
 facts. I think they are " the first assembly of gentlemen" in 
 Europe — patricians, no doubt, but patriots, too, whose blood 
 leaps through their limbs when there is occasion, as though 
 they never had trafificked away small national perquisites — and 
 who will (about midnight) cheer madly noble sentiments. But, 
 whether or not the first gentlemen in Europe, this is certain : 
 that they are a cleverer, shrewder, more dexterous set of men 
 that you will find elsewhere in England — House of Commons 
 existence being in itself the most magnificent of educations, 
 in teaching the relative importance of men and things ; and 
 the reason why the ordeal of a maiden speech is so greatly 
 dreaded, is simply because you know the sort of men who are 
 your auditors ; keener men than are in the whole world beside 
 — accustomed to measure intellect by its exact results on the 
 world, and capable of seeing at a glance through any pretence 
 that may be ofiered by a virgin orator. The Demosthenes of 
 
22 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 
 
 the public-house may have a profound contempt for the back 
 bencher member of the House of Commons who never talks. 
 But where would the Demosthenes be if the back bencher met 
 him in society — at a railway meeting — at quarter sessions — at 
 the bar — in the sweating parlour of a banking-house ? These 
 clever gentlemen, who are only chorus when the curtain is up 
 — when the Speaker is in the chair — the " Strangers" plentiful 
 — the Reporters arrayed — the ladies aghast — are as potent as 
 Disraeli, and as powerful as Sir James, when they came across 
 one another at dinner-parties, in the smoking-room, at com- 
 mittees, or country-house gatherings. For their own reasons 
 they are insignificant on the stage, where they submit to the 
 necessities of discipline. But who would recognise Mr. Glyn, 
 of the House, in the Mr. Glyn who sits chairman twice a year 
 over a noisy meeting in a Roman Doric room ten times as hand- 
 some as "the House," and who manages to a marvel the finance 
 of the " North-Western ] " Who would suppose that the Mr. 
 William Brown, who never speaks in the House, is the same 
 Mr. William Brown who, at Liverpool, regulates hundreds of 
 vessels, thousands of employes, and millions of merchandise] 
 Who would suppose that that quiet Mr. Walter, universal in 
 his knowledge, and because so wise, so very temperate, " leads" 
 the "leading journaU" This club is by no means to be esti- 
 mated by reference to its own chiefs : a Russell or a Disraeli 
 are selected and put first ; not because they are the first men 
 in all respects, but because they have, with most time, the most 
 serviceable special capacity as mouthpieces of large bodies. 
 The House, then, being a crowd of the cleverest, keenest fellows 
 going, position in it is not dependent solely upon public appear- 
 ance, but upon the impression produced off the stage, in private 
 society, in the smoking-room, in committee. M.P.'s are gossips : 
 they know everything of each other ; they canvass one another ; 
 they estimate one another ; and, if the hon. gentleman who has 
 talked very loud, and perhaps very well, on the stage, has not 
 also been a hit in the green room, his success is very incomplete 
 and partial ; and the applause of his local journal will but 
 slightly compensate for the sneer he will detect in the lobby. 
 There are some men in the House who may count friends in the 
 whole 656 of their colleagues — Lord John, for one ; Mr. La- 
 bouchere for another ; and there is no accident in such instances 
 — it is the result of a deliberate persevering system of gain- 
 ing good opinions. There are certain men with whom reserve 
 tells better than cordiality — as with Sir Robert Peel ; but 
 lesser men will lose everything if they neglect the art of pro- 
 ducing favourable impressions. Fenelon, in his account of 
 Cicero, says, " when he began to dedicate himself more earnestly 
 to public business, he thought that while mechanics knew the 
 name, the place, the use of every tool and instrument they take 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 23 
 
 in their hands, though these things are inanimate, it would be 
 absurd for a statesman, whose functions cannot be performed 
 but by means of men, to be negligent in acquainting himself 
 with the citizens. He therefore made it his business to com- 
 mit to memory not only their names, but the place of abode of 
 those of greater note, what friends they made use of, and what 
 neighbours were in their circle." Certainly the " great fa- 
 vourite" class of men in society owe something to a natural 
 amiability, but at least the unsympathetic men might learn 
 the alphabet, the letters, of the language they have to read ; 
 might master the House in detail as well as collectively. No 
 orator succeeds who does not know his audience : and the House 
 of Commons is cruel to those whom it does not like. Its likes 
 and dislikes have little to do with the politics of the object. 
 Mr. Hume, the most plain-speaking of Radicals, has been for 
 twenty years the most popular man in an oligarchical House 
 of Commons, and not because, but in spite, of his public appear- 
 ances, which have been, first, "unbusiness-like," as having no 
 party at his back, and further, have been slightly too nume- 
 rous, although, as Charles Buller said, "there is never any 
 monotony about him." Mr. Henry Drummond never rises but 
 to sneer at all public virtue and all political pretence ; but he 
 is attentively listened to and laughed at, not that the wit is so 
 acute, but that so many have met him out at dinner, and en- 
 joyed the sample in the bulk. To point a contrast, it is enough 
 to say that Mr. Bright carries his inexorable detestation of 
 Toryism into the lobby : whence he is shunned in the green 
 room and hooted on the stage. A great blunder, for Radicalism 
 cannot do without Mr. Bright. 
 
 These suggestions will show to new M.P.'s the wisdom of a 
 long study of the House out of the House, before they venture 
 on the pursuit of the Speaker's eye. A stranger, who is not 
 known and ascertained privately, has no chance of being heard : 
 he is only stared at. But also, before rising to speak, the man 
 who means to win should have come to a conclusion as to what 
 modern House of Commons oratory amounts to, should catch 
 the knack of the arena, and talk in the tone of the place. 
 
24 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'s. 
 
 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 
 
 CHxiPTER V. 
 
 I UNDERTOOK in my last letter, to furnish you with some useful 
 hints about the House of Commons' school of oratory. Let me, 
 as before, teach by reference to examples. 
 
 You have been at Lady Dedlock's party, out Chelsea way. 
 You have danced, or played whist, or heard songs, or flirted, or 
 been bored in some other way ; and at about eleven you discover 
 that, having undergone sufficient of the horrors of English 
 society, there is to be a division down at "the House," and you 
 impetuously get away, convincing the hon. Misses Dedlock that 
 you are a martyr to your public duty. You leap into your 
 Brougham or your Hansom, and drive to the Reform or to the 
 Carlton, to ask what is going on down at the bottom of Par- 
 liament Street. You meet somebody shirking Mr. Hayter or 
 Mr. Mackenzie, avoiding the "whip" over a late cutlet or an 
 early cigar ; and they tell you that they left at ten, when 
 "that solemn ass" So-and-so was on his legs — "his hind ones, 
 of course" — but that "Dizzy" or Lord John was expected to 
 be "up" every minute. You hasten out of the club back to 
 your cab. " To the House." You whirl along dark Pall Mall, 
 and past deserted Charing Cross, and down empty Whitehall. 
 It is an odd contrast : — the silent streets, and the busy bustling 
 scene, alive with light and life even at midnight, to which you 
 are hurrying, and which you have already pictured on your 
 brain, exciting you as the colours mingle. Mighty London is 
 putting its pulses to rest ; but the heart — the Senate — is 
 pumping away the sustaining blood of the nation, in the far 
 corner, on the Thames ; and you — is it not strange that the 
 policemen do not bend as you rush by ? — are going to lend a 
 hand. The Horse Guards strike twelve as you pass — the strokes 
 reverberating through the still air ; and it is an efibrt of the 
 parliamentary imagination to credit that the Imperial Legis- 
 lature can be at work, and the Imperial People of the capital — , 
 having gone to bed — so utterly indiiferent to it. But as your 
 vehicle hastens on by the bridge, you meet a couple of cabs 
 galloping eastward ; you see that they are carrying the fa- 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 25 
 
 miliar faces of reporters ; and you judge by the mad speed 
 they are going at, that there is something "important" in pro- 
 gress. It is a sign of life, and you are now glad you left 
 Lady Dedlock's in such good time. You turn into Palace Yard, 
 crammed with four-wheelers, and horses, and grooms, and 
 porters ; the new House and the old Hall are a blaze of gas ; 
 and you are excited, and even begin to wonder how the di- 
 vision will go. You thread the well-lighted but silent hall of 
 Rufus and Hastings, and get into the lobby — empty, but 
 ghastly with excess of glare. Hayter receives you with a 
 wink, or Mackenzie with a grin. You haul down your white 
 vest, and square your tie, and make your curls all taut ; lift 
 your hat, slide along the vestibule, and enter the House. As 
 you have gone on, since you alighted from your cab, you have 
 heard, from porter, policemen, messengers, stray members, and 
 the whippers-in, that " Mr, Disraeli is up;" and hints have 
 flown about your ears that he is making a " great speech." As 
 you reach the vestibule, you hear swelling cheers ; and your 
 fancy, in spite of your experience, if you have any, will insist 
 that there is a fervent orator within, consuming his hearers 
 with burning eloquence, and wieldiog fierce M.P.dom with over- 
 whelming power. Your blood tingles through your veins with 
 expectation ; and as you push open the green door, your every 
 nerve is throbbing with eagerness. 
 
 The House of Commons is before you, and your sensations 
 undergo an instantaneous collapse. Your eye takes in the 
 scene ; a full House, listening, but lazily and loungingly ; the 
 cheer you heard having been made up of an aggregate half 
 laugh, half sneer. You see the orator, there at the top. His 
 body is half thrown across the table, one hand resting behind 
 him, flirting with a laced cambric, the other white hand tap- 
 ping gently a red box. And he is making a great speech ? He 
 is talking to Lord John, whose arms are crossed carelessly, 
 whose thin lips are parted with an easy smile, and who seems 
 to think the eloquence rather amusing. Mr. Disraeli has a 
 most exquisite voice, and he is using only its gentlest modu- 
 lations. He is quite colloquial, and his tone is friendly and 
 familiar, — especially when he comes to a bitter innuendo, when 
 he turns his head to the country gentlemen, that they may 
 hear it and laugh — a Ioav, simmering chuckle, that just agitates 
 the surface for a moment only, Lord John, and the Whigs and 
 the Radicals smiling, too, as though the sarcasm were a good- 
 natured joke. Mr. Disraeli is getting near the end of his speech, 
 and is now recapitulating and fastening all the points (not 
 mathematical ones) together, as is his wont ; and this is his 
 argumentative style. He approaches the peroration — his forte ; 
 and here he raises his head ; he throws back his collar ; he 
 puts by his cambric ; he turns from Lord John and faces the 
 
26 HINTS TO NEW M.P. S. 
 
 House. He speaks slower ; he ceases his affected stammer ; he 
 is more serious and more solemn, but still quiet and unpre- 
 tending. Talking now to the many, and not to one or two, he 
 becomes more oratorical, and he fixes attention. What he is 
 now saying is the manifesto of a party ; and not a syllable is 
 lost. He is nearing a meaning, and his articulation is elaborate; 
 and there is a dead silence. But he is still unexcited ; dex- 
 terously and quietly he eludes the meaning — soars above it, in 
 one or two involuted closing sentences, delivered with a louder 
 voice and with more vehement gestures ; and having got the 
 cheer at the right spot, this great orator, concluding, sinks into 
 his seat, as nonchalant as though he had been answering a 
 question about Fahrenheit, and immediately (Mackenzie having 
 told him how the division will be) turns to ask Lord Henry 
 Lennox whether Grisi was in good voice that night ! 
 
 This is an average appearance of things on an average great 
 debate night ; and this is a daguerreotype of Disraeli on such 
 an occasion — a man proper to be singled out as a specimen of 
 a House of Commons' orator, because he is just now the official 
 " leader of the House," and because the ambition of his life 
 (and what such men aim at they hit) has been to succeed in 
 that assembly. The loose attitude of the House answers to the 
 lax, chatty style of the orator. There is no earnestness in the 
 assembly, and there is no violence or vehemence in the speaker 
 addressing it. It is the assembly of ^' the first gentlemen in 
 Europe ; " and the style of the place, you can see, is the easy 
 and the gentlemanly style. Those uncommonly clever fellows 
 do not want an argument or an appeal ; each has settled how 
 he will vote; and all they require is a "precis" from capable 
 statesmen for and against the vote. Mr. Disraeli has com- 
 manded them all by being useful ; and his oratory consists of 
 lucid statements of practical cases, made agreeable by polite- 
 ness to all parties, and rendered amusing by happy hits at 
 awkward individuals. The only quality he displays in a speech 
 is clearness of intellect, developed in that which somebody has 
 said is the definition of House of Commons' talk — "elegant 
 conversation." He rarely ventures on a little eloquence: that 
 the House of Commons will not endure ; for it does not want 
 to be excited — it wants to be guided ; it calculates — it does 
 not feel. Clearly, then, people who want to succeed with the 
 Commons must, as near as possible, adopt Mr. Disraeli's system. 
 
 Take the next great men. Lord Palmerston and Lord John 
 Russell. Fancy a spirited dispatch being calmly read to the 
 Queen, and you gain an exact idea of Lord Palmerston's style 
 of speaking. The thoughts are cheered, for Lord Palmerston 
 is intensely the Englishman, above party, and always talking, 
 or seeming, which is as good, to talk, from the national cue ; 
 but the spirited sentences would have no chance but for the 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 27 
 
 calm manner. Again, Lord John Russell is always for pre- 
 serving his country — in ice. The frigid voice, the didactic 
 tone, the reserved gesture — consisting of catlike and cautiously 
 placing his hand on the table, and slowly withdrawing it — are 
 very repulsive to a stranger, who cannot understand how that 
 cold nature got a leadership. But Lord John Russell is essen- 
 tially a House of Commons hero: deeply imbued with the 
 tone of the place, bred up in all its knacks and mannerisms, and 
 as an orator, in the House of Commons sense, keeping parties 
 together — he still holds the first place.* Lord John Russell is 
 often truly eloquent, delivering fine "passages" when the 
 occasion demands an ascension above the dead routine: but 
 those who have admired such passages must not suppose that 
 the manner corresponded to the vigorous idea. The melan- 
 choly of the manner, and the sad seriousness of the voice, but 
 deepen as the thought expands; and the heartiest cheering 
 which he has ever enjoyed has not induced him to quicken his 
 speech by one syllable. Enter the House while Lord John is 
 in the midst of a peroration, and you might think that some 
 one was pronouncing a funeral eloge, and that all the mourners 
 were hooting him. There is the excitement visible in the 
 House itself, but the excitement is not even apparently shared 
 in by the speaker. So that when Mr. Patrick Somers, who was 
 a very competent judge, said that the House of Commons was 
 the best night-house in London, he meant only, as in other 
 such places, for the audience, not for the performers. 
 
 The use of the term "debate" leads to a common misappre- 
 hension. It implies discussion ; and, properly speaking, there 
 never is any discussion in the House of Commons. A " debate " 
 is simply a series of speakers speaking for themselves, or for 
 numbers, offering advice to the whole. There are allusions here 
 and there in these speeches to other speeches ; but there is 
 little or no replicatory argument. There were debates once 
 when there were giants in the House of Commons ; but those 
 were days when there were also dwarfs. Size is assimilated 
 now. There are now no dull, gaitered, bovine country gentle- 
 men ; and what nominees for towns are left are active-minded, 
 keen fellows, who are matches for first ministers in mere logic. 
 Between the orator and the audience there is no great differ- 
 ence in intellect ; and all the speaking assumes that the audi- 
 ence is too clever to need the elimination of obvious common- 
 places, to endure flatulent eloquence, or to bear with any pre- 
 tentious tone of superiority. 
 
 Take examples of failures, and learn by them. The bores of 
 the House of Commons are as well known as the pets; and it 
 
 * The writer had to modify this opinion in observing Lord John in 
 the after session. 
 
28 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 
 
 is very remarkable, that the bores are acknowledged to be 
 about the cleverest men going. The bore, "par excellence^ was 
 kicked out at the last election ; and it was a pity, for he was to 
 be studied, on the principle which rules the cooking of cucum- 
 bers. He was a wonderful man — a man of genuine genius. His 
 memory was wax to receive and marble to retain. His acute- 
 ness was miraculously rapid. His honesty was beyond all 
 question. He could speak glibly, and for six hours at a time, 
 if need were. This man devoted himself to the House of Com- 
 mons; sacrificing to it splendid professional prospects; and 
 bold in that sacrifice, in the consciousness of ability, integrity, 
 and noble intentions, he concluded that he was entitled to be 
 a personage. Accordingly, he attacked every subject. He 
 was in every debate, on every committee. He moved for any 
 returns. He introduced any grievance. Figaro here, Figaro 
 there! He speedily advanced into boredom. Put down, 
 counted out, he retaliated ; he lectured the House, he expostu- 
 lated, he abused, he reviled. No men are ever misunderstood 
 in the House of Commons. They said he was clever ; and if 
 they had had time they would have taken a pleasure in his 
 speaking. But they had no time; they did not require instruc- 
 tion or enlightenment from a man who stood aloof from 
 parties, and speaking, therefore, only for himself, spoke for one 
 no other M.P. cared one curse about. He had not patience or 
 tact enough to study the men he wanted to master ; and the 
 result was, that, with all his capacity, he was the most signal 
 failure, io proportion to the pretension, ever recorded. He had 
 trusted to good speaking — to the readiness that delighted de- 
 bating societies ; and he found that good speaking was the last 
 article in the list of weapons necessary in a coup de main on 
 the House of Commons. In another way, there is a signal 
 illustration to be referred to of the ineflaciency of the mere 
 orator to gain a position in such an assembly. Such was the 
 great bore in the Parliament from 1841 to 1846. He was, 
 perhaps, the finest speaker ever heard. As an elocutionist, I 
 never heard his equal ; and it was universally admitted that he 
 was an accomplished, clever man. He talked — perhaps de- 
 lighting in his own voice, and in his smooth, elegant sen- 
 tences — somewhat too frequently and too long ; but all that he 
 said was to the point, and was well said. Yet when he spoke, 
 the House emptied itself; and if he talked for three hours, not 
 three lines appeared in the newspapers. "Why? I asked a 
 member once; and the answer was, "Because he spoke so 
 well." He was only an elocutionist ; he was not of a party, 
 speaking that which would be followed up ; and abstract essays 
 were of course despised. This gentleman is now in his proper 
 sphere. As a journalist, he may have financial reasons to know 
 
HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 29 
 
 he never is read ; but, at least, he has the gratification of seeing 
 312 columns of abstract cleverness put into print during the 
 year. Printers' devils never count out. 
 
 The raoral is to be pursued through other notorious fail- 
 ures. The two most brilliant Irishmen of the day are Mr. 
 Whiteside and Mr. G. Moore. Both are poets, wits, and scho- 
 lars ; both are consummately fine speakers. Mr. Whiteside's 
 celebrated state-trial speech in defence of his political oppo- 
 nent O'Connell, stands conspicuous among the great speeches 
 of the Irish bar — as one of the greatest. Yet the failure of Mr. 
 Whiteside in the House of Commons was most overwhelm- 
 ing : and most deservedly. Fresh from the contentions of the 
 native arena, he imported his polemical zeal into the Senate, 
 where there is at least a philosophic contempt for sectarian 
 squabbles: and in his first sentence he made one-third of the 
 House of Commons his enemies for life. Think of a man 
 making way in the British House of Commons by violently 
 assaulting a large section of it ! From the first moment he 
 was condemned, and has never recovered the defeat. His 
 powerful style, his graceful turn of thought, the neatness of 
 his illustrations, and the solid grasp of his argument — in a 
 word, the finished oratory — are recognised and admired. But 
 even the Inglises take part with the Keoghs when Inglises and 
 Keoghs have sat together in one assembly. A section was in- 
 sulted — the whole were offended. Talking from the very 
 opposite tribune, Mr. Moore commits precisely the same fault, 
 with some others. He is so full of talent that he has no room 
 for tact. Too clever to repress a sarcasm, he talks at the Irish 
 papers and not at the House, and consequently never makes 
 way in the House. Besides this defect in tone — greatly 
 exasperated during the fever of the Ecclesiastical Titles' Bill 
 — Mr. Moore errs in another respect. He repudiates the knack 
 of the House of Commons, and is elaborate, ornate, polished, 
 brilliant — and is not listened to. The House laughs at his epi- 
 grams, not because the preparation of the extempore is 
 detected, but because the manner demands attention and an- 
 nounces conceit. In Ireland it is said, by the different parties, 
 that the Moores and Whitesides are failures in the English 
 House of Commons because they have " the brogue." This is 
 a blunder exposed by every day's experience. Mr. Whiteside 
 does not speak with so much of an Irish brogue as the Duke of 
 Argyle speaks with a Scotch brogue; and the burr of Lord 
 Brougham was once the terror of London drawing-rooms. 
 These second-rate Irishmen of to-day forget the Irishmen 
 who have succeeded in the House of Commons. Burke's 
 brogue was notorious ; Grattan was national in his accent, and 
 never learned the trick of talking what the Dublin exquisites 
 called " English." Every singularity is to be avoided, perhaps. 
 
30 HINTS TO NEW M.P.'S. 
 
 for comfort ; and in that sense, a strong, distinctive accent is 
 to be regarded as a personal defect. But it is only a personal 
 defect, and House of Commons records tell how little such dis- 
 advantages count against tact and perseverance — meaning 
 physique. In fact, the next best thing to a great advantage 
 is a great defect — it is an advertisement. An obliquity in 
 moral character tells so little against a bold and useful man, 
 in actual life, and especially in the life of the Senate, that it 
 is possible a statesman who stammered would be endured if he 
 only brought in good budgets and practical bills. Mr. Disraeli 
 overcame the obstacles of race and creed, and reached the 
 mastery of the most Christian House of Commons ; and surely 
 an Irishman, though with a brogue, might lead the English 
 House of Commons, if his serviceable qualities brought him 
 into prominence. 
 
 There are further examples and further arguments to be 
 dealt with : the House of Commons is only to be compre- 
 hended by an examination of the peculiarities of its heroes. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, 
 
 No. 1. 
 
 A STRANGER IN PARLIAMENT.* 
 
 Nov. 13. 
 There is no sneering at the opening of the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain and Ireland, It is history, and very 
 significant history too. The show has its ahsurd sides ; but 
 take any pageant to pieces, and forget the moral and the mean- 
 ing, and what remains 1 The glass coaches and red harness, 
 and the gilt, and the feathers, and the spears, and the wigs, 
 and the beef-eaters, and the gentlemen-at-arms, are sillinesses ; 
 and the gaping boobies of men and women who crowd into the 
 streets to look at the tinsel, and to shout, and to criticise 
 whether the Prince isn't fatter, and the ladies-in-waiting are 
 not thinner, are good butts to point a joke by. It is "barbaric 
 pomp," as plain Mr. Cobden said ; and it is true that the parade 
 might be less childish, less out of date, and be more substan- 
 tially grand. But it is the greatest monarch in the world, 
 passing through the streets of the greatest capital on God's 
 earth, to meet the Senate of the vastest empire under the sun ; 
 and there is no laughing at the show, for it is solemn and se- 
 rious history in process. The House of the Peers presents on 
 such a day a sight at seeing which the veins swell — even very 
 radical and philosophic veins. Those ill-dressed, ungainly men, 
 who crowd flustered to the bar, are not men who would look 
 well accurately painted in an historical picture by a Delaroche ; 
 but they are the picked men of the crack countries of Europe, 
 and, indirectly, in a chance way, loosely and laxly, they repre- 
 sent the intellect and the will, the passions and the aspirations, of 
 a hundred millions of human beings. Those old peers, in their 
 bizarre coats and cravats, are not as we fancy the senators of 
 Rome looked when the barbarian conqueror intruded on them : 
 
 ♦ Commencing Nov. 13, 1852. 
 
32 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 1. 
 
 but they. are the titular aristocracy of a foremost nation — 
 princes in revenues, true gentlemen in breeding, modellers of 
 society, arbiters of manners ; sections of them, too, leaders iu 
 the learning of their century. These grotesque, red-garbed, 
 booted and spurred, lieutenants of counties, and colonels of 
 regiments, and generals of divisions, are not picturesque ; but 
 they are chiefs of the army which has conquered and kept the 
 wonderful British dominions. Those petticoated, bald, help- 
 less, personages, on the bishops' bench, are not affecting — are, 
 indeed, in semblances, ludicrous ; but they are essential por- 
 tions of the aggregate there brought into representation — they 
 are delegates, symbols, of the religion which governs. And 
 add the ornaments to the formal utilities — those delicate, ex- 
 quisite, women, of the race which is most beautiful in women 
 — glancing in dainty dresses and priceless gems — are they, too, 
 suitable " members" in a Senate which is representative, reflec- 
 tive, of nineteenth century society 1 Pick the picture piece- 
 meal, and each inch of the canvas is a marvel ; and the whole 
 work is a portrait of a huge fraction of the humanity in motion 
 under the sceptre of the widely-worshipped little lady, who, as 
 Queen, is speaking the words which are to head another oneyear's 
 chapter of the annals of the world. There was true, genuine, 
 legitimate grandeur for more than the flunkeys, in the royal 
 procession on Thursday, though the rain drizzled, though the 
 road was plashy, though the democracy was damp, though the 
 State was sodden. And there was grandeur in the scene of the 
 royal speech ; though he who drew it up was a Jew adventurer, 
 who scorned the constitution, and contemned the religion, the 
 assembly were there to reverence ; and though that speech was 
 spoken to save from the destruction, which pretentious me- 
 diocrity merits, a set of the most thoroughly unprincipled 
 ofiice-mongers who ever, in the accidents of political intrigue, 
 got hold of a government. Members for Manchester may be 
 right in believing that the whole thing is a delusion — that the 
 whole theory on which that scene is based is only an abstrac- 
 tion, and that the practice belies the theory ; and in contending 
 that, in that massive machinery of representation — the people 
 — the many — the masses — from Lancashire artizans to Hindoo 
 ryots, have no real place. Granted. But is there not veritable 
 greatness in a great imposition ? 
 
 There was more, in the inauguration of this new Parliament, 
 than an a3sthetical interest. What the gladiatorial games, as a 
 public amusement, were to Rome, our Parliament is to us ; and 
 we take, nationally, an intense delight in watching the indi- 
 vidual combats — the party melees — and the personal duels — 
 in which consist political motion, if not progression : — and we 
 are attentive to all this from our instincts, because all this is 
 on a national stage what we are doing daily in our private 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO, 1. 33 
 
 theatricals — because we live in and like these strifes — ^because 
 we are a combative people. We personify principles^ as a prac- 
 tical people : and a session is not to large numbers a history of 
 questions carried or rejected, but a match, in which there are 
 so many rounds, and as to which we are intensely concerned, 
 whether Benjamin Disraeli, or John Russell, or Wm. Keogh, or 
 John Bright, or Wm. Gladstone, or James Graham, or Bernal 
 Osborne, leaves off best man. Especially is all this felt, and 
 does all this influence, in an apathetic time when we are not 
 vigorous in thinking our theories. But yesterday, above the 
 aesthetic, and the gymnastic, there was the business interest. 
 The question of the day is paramountly a financial one — 
 whether the new systems of carrying on trade and commerce 
 and paying taxes are to be revolutionised ; and, though there 
 is wealth going, and still heavier taxes than we have would be 
 and will be quietly paid, there could be no apathy in a matter, 
 if only one of forms, as to finance, which would affect the 
 money-making arrangements of every one of us. Rumours 
 had been pouring fast and thick upon the world ; and there 
 was doubt, curiosity, everywhere — dismay, too, in many places. 
 Was there a split in the Cabinet? Circumstantial stories were 
 told of how daring Disraeli had resolved to eject Lord Derby 
 from power, and was succeeding, by magical arts (brought by 
 his ancestors from the East), in carrying a Tory Cabinet with 
 him in the wildest liberal resolutions, in spite of the prudences 
 entreated for by the rather slow, of late, Rupert of debate. 
 And, on the other hand, just as likely-looking accounts were 
 current of Disraeli having been thwarted by the Rupert, of an 
 emphatic reactionary speech being in Her Majesty's hands, of 
 the consequent sulks of Mr. Disraeli, and of an anticipated 
 Palmerston and Russell-like emeute as soon as a Speaker could 
 be huddled into the chair. Never was contrivance more com- 
 plete to puzzle and to tease, and to excite a public. The secret 
 was kept to the last moment ; and the denouernent, such as it 
 was, had everything in its favour. In the surprise, it was quite 
 possible that the Mus that has proceeded from the Protectionist 
 Ministry's rocks ahead, might be taken for a more imposing 
 animal. 
 
 But, though the rush of a mouse across the floor may get 
 an exclamation in tribute to the suddenness of the start, people 
 rearrange themselves courageously, and rather self-contemptu- 
 ously, at first. And the consummation of all this gestation of 
 nine months, from March to November is, indeed, appallingly, 
 ludicrously little. Men and Members gazed half-laugh ingly, 
 half-sneakingly, at one another as they came back from the 
 House of Lords to their own lobbies. What ! a general election — 
 twenty cabinet councils — last session lost — the recess negative — 
 universal excitement — Parliament called together three months 
 
34 PARLIAMENTARY KETROSPECfl^, KO. 1. 
 
 before the ordinary time — and all only to hear Ministers say over 
 again, and nothing more, precisely, ipsissinia verba, with the 
 t's crossed, what they said over and over again when they were 
 being bullied, all last spring, and a good part of last summer. 
 Turn the matter, twist it, pet it, paw it, how you will, that is 
 the fact you get at at last — that Ministers say exactly, and no 
 more than what they said before — which is, that they didn't 
 like free trade, but that they will not resist the will of the 
 country ; and yet, that they will propose measures to diminish 
 the injury done by free trade to certain classes. Ah, but now 
 they have given up protection. No doubt : but did any one 
 believe that they did not give it up two years ago ; and did 
 any one think it at all in danger nine months ago ? Is it not 
 the most astounding folly, all this affectation ? Assembled and 
 expectant Parliament, hear this speech — strong, and suspicious, 
 and savage Liberals consider it — and then what do the Free- 
 traders do ] Why, they have to put up Mr. Charles Villiers to 
 do in November what he proposed to do, and what they would 
 not let him do, last February, namely, move a resolution de- 
 claratory that the House of Commons of England adopts irre- 
 vocably a free-trade policy. 
 
 Mr. Villiers's speech last night was nothing but a confession 
 that he had been made a dupe of by his friends, who had 
 been made dupes of by the Ministers, and that — he must begin 
 all over again. Lord John Russell, aping still the prominence 
 of leader, though the studied coolness of the House might 
 have told him that his self-assumed office is not completely 
 acknowledged, tried to be funny, on the attempt of Mr. Disraeli 
 to delude him — forgetting that the laugh was entirely against 
 himself, inasmuch as during nine months Mr. Disraeli had 
 effectually and profitably succeeded in deluding him. Mr. Glad- 
 stone (who was cheered as if it was understood the leadership 
 was to be his) repeated his speech of February : his indigna- 
 tion now is just what his indignation was then, at the same 
 level, and for the same cause. Lord Palmerston was a fac- 
 simile of himself, in look, dress, voice, and words, of last 
 February. Mr. Osborne made precisely the identical points, 
 and they only did not tell as well because Mr. Osborne was a 
 little too vulgar in his style, and because the jokes had been 
 heard or read before. Liberalism — liberal party — never looked 
 so laughable ; and it was all felt to be so silly a business, that 
 the House was quite quiet and subdued — at least, if that is not 
 the effect of an invasion of new memberdom ; and there was 
 no excitement, no spirit, no force, therefore, in the talking, so 
 that the new men must have thought a " great debate " but a 
 dull affair ; and so that the habitues were glad it was all over 
 by ten o'clock. There was humiliation inflicted on the whole 
 Opposition by that scorching, conquering, gay, daring, sneering, 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 1. 35 
 
 short speech of Mr. Disraeli. Power was in his voice — conscious- 
 ness of triumph in the look and gesture ; for at the moment, 
 he felt only delight in his reply to Lord John, and forgot, in the 
 excitement of shining, the fearful threat implied in Mr. Villiers's 
 notice of motion. That came on the Ministerial part of the 
 House like a thunderbolt, and to most of the Liberals as a 
 surprise ; for the decision had only been come to the previous 
 evening, at the meeting of Lord John's intimates, among whom 
 Mr. Villiers was included, — and at which dinner-party the 
 royal speech was read, Mr. Disraeli still accepting Lord John 
 as Opposition leader, and so doing him the routine courtesy of 
 giving him a copy of the speech the day before the meeting of 
 Parliament. Evidently, Disraeli did not exactly comprehend 
 the significance of the announced free-trade resolution : for all 
 his calculations rested upon his dexterous paragraph recog- 
 nising free trade in the speech, and then upon his budget, 
 which, doubtless, is a good one, and in the prestige of which 
 he hopes to gain adequate power to construct out of the loose 
 House a practical majority. But Lord Derby, who had heard the 
 news of Mr. Villiers's motion, before he addressed the Lords, did 
 understand exactly what he meant ; and it must have been 
 under the pressing sense of this unexpected blow that he made 
 the very worst, stupidest, awkwardest speech he ever delivered. 
 He was insufferably depressed and tame : and in the hurry of 
 the moment he, practised as he is, plunged into very gauche- 
 ries, for the latter part of his stumbling piece of oratory con- 
 sists of a wearisome admission that the House of Commons 
 " might " beat him if they liked, and in a pitiful appeal to the 
 ** good sense" and "moderation" of Parliament to sink "per- 
 sonal" questions (Disraeli, who broke Peel's heart to save a 
 colleague, deprecating personalities !) and to avoid " party " 
 questions (the Protectionists to be cosmopolitan !) and to look 
 at public affairs through the medium which the Duke of Wel- 
 lington v/ould have approved. For the rest Lord Derby made 
 use of the clumsiest arguments to explain free-trade success : 
 and, for the first time, he was not admired, even as an elocu- 
 tionist ; and he was chillingly listened to, once or twice laughed 
 at, and not at all applauded, except by one or two friends be- 
 hind him. 
 
 Clearly the Cabinet is in a very diflicult and dangerous posi- 
 tion. The rank " humbug" of their Ministerial career is per- 
 ceived ; and their safety does not depend, as last night was 
 universally said, on Disraeli getting Mr. Villiers to allow the 
 Budget to be talked out before the free-trade resolution is 
 brought on. The Budget may be a good one ; and it will give 
 data for the next Ministry. But there must be a public rising 
 at the imposture practised on the country — on the arrant 
 villany of the men who, in opposition, Protectionists, proclaim, 
 
 D 2 
 
3$ PARLIAMENT ARr RETROSPECT, NO. 1. 
 
 in power, their readiness to carry out free trade as honestly as 
 the authors of that policy would have carried it out (that is, 
 Disraeli would now do as Peel would now do !) : and, if a trace 
 of political morality or public honour be left in England, these 
 men will be dismissed in disgrace. There is yet, however, a 
 doubt if there is not too much apathy for the country to over- 
 come the temptation of a good financial and general policy, 
 which apparently Ministers mean ; and, on the other hand, it 
 is doubtful whether, supposing only a pure and simple free- 
 trade resolution be proposed, Ministers may not vote for it, and 
 so clear themselves, by power of face and insolence, out of the 
 only difficulty — for it must be confessed the talk of reform 
 is only a sham — which meets them. Undoubtedly there is 
 marvellous genius for the management of men — unbounded 
 hardihood — and plentiful resources, — in Benjamin Disraeli, 
 which may enable him to surmount this crisis : and, aiding 
 him in spite of themselves, we have to remember that there is 
 rank confusion among the Opposition — ^that no party but the 
 Ministerial has any policy, good or bad— and that there would 
 be internecine war between the Free-traders, should it become 
 a question, Disraeli beaten, whom the Queen was to send for. 
 
?AELIAMEKTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 2. 37 
 
 No. 2.* 
 
 Nov. 27. 
 Ministerial crises continue to possess interest ; for although 
 a change of men in these days does not mean a change of 
 measures, it means a houleversement of places, and so excites 
 the countless sorrows and the innumerable hopes of the large 
 classes who live upon that odd element in the British constitu- 
 tion — patronage. This week the chances were hardly equal 
 enough to justify any positive belief that Government was 
 going out on Villiers's motion ; and, to some extent, the ex- 
 citement was of that sham character which every day is got 
 up by a world which insists upon gossipping away the doc- 
 trines of humanity. But there were some possibilities which 
 could be assumed to be probabilities; and there were vague 
 notions of personal risks and successes — in a word, there was a 
 "situation" in the political play; and we have had a week 
 which lay lightly on hand; and which will leave some fruitful 
 lessons to the philosophers who do not take for granted that 
 civilisation is half way to its terminus yet, however startling 
 may be the passages of Crampton's or Napier's engines, and 
 who, consequently, see a good deal to laugh at in the sayings 
 and doings of this very remarkably enlightened nation. 
 
 There is sham from beginning to end in the whole business. 
 In the first place, all the Manchester alarm about the danger 
 to free trade was a huge sham : and, consequently, this hurried 
 Villiers protest is a sham. Manchester was not alarmed : and 
 Mr. Villiers and Lord John are profoundly convinced that free 
 trade is quite safe: their object is — eticore of the family 
 Government. Then the second pretext, preferred by such 
 ligneous individuals as Mr. Frederick Peel, that such a motion 
 as Villiers's ought to be carried in the way of a poetical justice 
 to the Protectionist party, is a grand sham : for nobody in the 
 House of Commons feels revengeful, and privately the gentle- 
 men who are, publicly and politically, such arrant scamps, are 
 endured and applauded — and no wonder, for, excepting such 
 timbrous persons as this young Mr. Peel, who never once 
 thought for himself, and therefore never committed an incon- * 
 sistency, there are not a dozen men in the House of Commons 
 whose careers have not been careers of constant conversion, for 
 
 * This paper refers to the Palmerston amendment on the Villiers 
 Free-Trade Motion, which, for a tune, saved the Derby Government, 
 
38 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 2. 
 
 office or other as pecuniary sake, to ideas they had originally 
 opposed. Manchester is, no doubt, honest and silly in suppo^ 
 ing, while boasting that the Protectionists are in a contemptible 
 minority in the country, that Lord Derby could, or that Mr. 
 Disraeli would, do anything to disturb what is called the " set- 
 tlement," but what was really only the first step in free trade, 
 of 1846 : and as to the remedial, compensatory, tricks imputed 
 to Mr. Disraeli, why the Budget could very well be waited for, 
 and the tricks could be taken on their merits, and left to the 
 disposition of a decidedly free-trade House of Commons. But 
 what Mr. Yilliers means by his motion, and what the Whigs 
 mean by supporting that motion, is, simply to turn out Lord 
 Derby, that Lord John may once come in again. What certain 
 of the Peelites mean by supporting it is, that it will be less 
 difficult to get into office vid Lord John than vid Mr. Disraeli, 
 against a junction with whom the sham venerators of the 
 Peelian not perfect memory would protest. All know very well 
 that Mr. Disraeli may carry as good if not better free-trade 
 financial measures than themselves : while on general subjects 
 the Whigs and Peelites are well aware that they are engaging 
 the aid of Manchester upon false pleas, since between Whig 
 party, Peel party, and Derby party, there is no difference what- 
 ever in general principles of politics — with this difference in 
 favour of the Derby section, that all the tendencies, however 
 little in earnest or solid, of Mr. Disraeli are towards diminish- 
 ing the power of the aristocracy and increasing that of the Crown 
 and of the democracy. No doubt the chorus in this drama 
 going on this week — the people, who are to be distinguished 
 from the public, for that has some power and influence over 
 the club at Westminster, — have distinct ideas as to what has 
 passed ; and are making comments — if they could only be 
 heard. They do feel some symptoms of disgust at the ''chi- 
 valry" and "personal honour" of Lord Derby, and at the con- 
 duct of the "assembly of gentlemen" appealed to by Lord 
 Palmerston on Tuesday. It is all very infamous in the eyes of 
 the people, for the party which attacked and broke the heart of 
 Peel to stick to office as free-traders. But what have the 
 people to do with the matter 1 The public elects and endures 
 the House of Commons, which sanctions the swindle of a Derby 
 and a Disraeli, and the dulness of a Walpole and a Paking- 
 ton : — and, after all, the people are greater sinners than the 
 men who, like Disraeli, find the representative system a delu- 
 sion, and so turn a great nation to their personal banker *s 
 account. 
 
 Ad interim^ while the enlightened British nation is recover- 
 ing that old English state of mind in which Jew adventurers 
 and combative earls would not have been selected as the 
 leaders of a Christian and a commercial race, we may take 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 2. 39 
 
 "Parliament simply in its at present popular aspect — as a pub- 
 lic amusement—and so proceed to criticise the performances. 
 The last few nights have had their interest, and these are 
 worth a summing up. Tuesday was a great night in the 
 House of Commons. The house was full — the first time 
 that new chamber has seen a crush. In that magnificent 
 assembly — for with the coloured light burning down on its 
 gorgeousness, one momentarily forgets that there is little reality 
 in the representation — there was evident eager curiosity and 
 ardent excitement — to see the fun ; and fortunately the key 
 struck at the beginning was sustained to the end : and the re- 
 sult was what the door-keepers call ^' a great debate." Why ? 
 Because from first to last the question was a personal one — 
 because nobody thought or talked of the abstractions of fiscal 
 controversy — and because the debate consisted of personal 
 attack, rejoinder, and recrimination. Mr. Villiers showed up 
 Lord Derby — Mr. Disraeli showed up Lord John and Mr. Glad- 
 stone — Mr. Bright showed up the Cliristophers, and Paking- 
 tons, and Mackenzies, the wretched tools of Disraeli — Mr. 
 Seymer showed up Mr. F. Peel — and Mr. F. Peel showed up 
 himself — and Lord Palmerston showed up his former col- 
 leagues: and with so varied an entertainment, the audience 
 was naturally satisfied. Mr. Villiers — a man petted into one 
 idea-dom — made a thoroughly fine speech, full of point, logic, 
 spirited appeal, and wit : and Lord Derby, who was leaning 
 over the balustrade of the gallery all the time, could not have 
 avoided seeing that that compact mass of clever-looking men 
 on the free-trade side did not, in any degree, believe in him, — 
 thoroughly appreciated and endorsed the declaration of the 
 orator that he (Villiers) could not perceive " chivalry " in the 
 last six months of thimble-rigging ; and, if his lordship has 
 sense at all, he went home to his dinner that evening with a 
 considerable deterioration in his lofty conception that because he 
 is rather richer than the George Thompsons or Ernest Joneses 
 of British politics, he is as distinguished from them rather as 
 Bayard and somewhat ludicrously like Sidney. And his mor- 
 tification could only have been increased on finding that his 
 friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who himself moved 
 the amendment (strangely enough, for it was thought he would 
 put up Walpole, and so reserve himself for that reply, at the 
 end of the debate, which there is not a man in the whole party, 
 after himself, to give), did not perceive, as the principal point 
 in Villiers's speech, the attack on the Premier. It was cruel ; 
 but Disraeli did not even refer to that point ; and so far from 
 being in the vicarious passion Lord Derby probably expected, 
 he even went out of his way to compliment and flatter his old 
 on-town friend, the member for Wolverhampton. 
 
 Yet Mr. Disraeli was in a passion — in his own way — very 
 
40 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 2. 
 
 self-possessed, though very fierce — quiet, but savage. Think of 
 the week of baiting he had gone through about that terrible 
 plagiarism * which nothing can explain away, and which no 
 sophism can deny to have been the most contemptible literary 
 larceny on record. Think of all the parallels made between his 
 position now, and that of Peel in 1846 ; and think that the 
 question, as far as he is concerned, was whether he should leave 
 the money of office, and the glory of power for ever — ^for down 
 now, and Benjamin Disraeli would be trampled to death. There 
 must be something superhumanly intrepid in the man {after 
 committing such plagiarism, which had been ignominiously 
 found out, and knowing better than any one of his critics the 
 thorough miserable dishonesty of that political life of his which 
 the House was called upon to arraign) who could, under such 
 circumstances, and with the full consciousness that his audience 
 was dead against him, ready at the slightest provocation to laugh 
 or kick him into Coventry, rise up in the face of that Parliament 
 and of the country, resolved to regain, by one vast effort, all he 
 had lost — to rout every one of his antagonists, — and to take a 
 higher personal position than he had ever yet possessed. That 
 was his resolution : and that was what he has done : — and 
 yet people say the age of oratory is over ! " Totijours Vau- 
 dace'^ is the maxim of Danton, which Disraeli illustrates. 
 And it was not, on Tuesday, the impudence (it is the only 
 word) merely of manner, affected to conceal confusion : it was 
 real, true, genuine, cool self-possession. The proof of this is in 
 the fact that he seized upon the very last phrase of Villiers's 
 speech, upon its very last point, and turned the whole of his own 
 speech upon that very point — as if the arrangement and matter 
 of his speech had been utterly unpremeditated — and as if it 
 had only been incidentally provoked out from him, on a stray 
 occasion. Villiers concluded by the argument that the Pro- 
 tectionist party had been doing " enormous mischief," in keep- 
 ing open the question, by allowing foreign nations to suppose 
 that we were undecided in our commercial ])olicy ; and that it 
 was, therefore, necessary to settle the matter by this resolution. 
 Disraeli took the charge at once, as if it were the only charge : 
 and if you will carefully read his speech, you will see that the 
 whole of it is an elaborated reply to the one accusation. The 
 readiness of intellect indicated in that fact is something that 
 should make psychologists stare. But the adroitness only be- 
 gins with that. He gave, in the first few sentences, a hint as 
 to what he meant his speech to be, in introducing the Peel, or 
 personal pronoun "I," and suggesting the connection between 
 what he had said in 1846, since 1846, and what he was saying 
 at that moment. He gave every one to understand that he, the 
 
 * The eloge on Wellington. 
 
PARLIAMEXTAKY RETROSPECT, NO. 2. 41 
 
 individual, ignored what the outsiders had been doing, ignored 
 that there were Protectionists, nominally his party, behind hini, 
 and that he intended only a personal vindication. Take his 
 speech in that sense, and it is a masterpiece — unanswerable : 
 and, in effect, he has been the visible Protectionist party, in- 
 carnated in him, and, though not entirely irresponsible for 
 what such boors and iunglers as Christopher and Mackenzie 
 may have been saying and doing, it must be granted that, in 
 unsuccessfully defending himself, he acquits the party. But it 
 would be taking a wrong view of his remarkable essay on 
 Tuesday night — an essay which I am disposed to think is the 
 most prodigious intellectual effort ever made by an orator — to 
 suppose that he was on the defensive. Not at all. From the 
 commencing to the concluding sentence he was an assailant — 
 ardent, relentless, victorious. His exposure of Lord John 
 Russell — and, when he had to deal with that name, there was 
 incredible malignant joy in his voice and gesture — was as over- 
 whelming as his former exposure of Peel — and in word-painting, 
 too : for Lord John is a being made up of " well-regulated party 
 feeling ;" and his ingenuity in making Mr. Gladstone particeps 
 criminis in the " enormous mischief" of the Protectionist 
 party is as perfect a piece of cleverness in warding off an anti- 
 cipated assailant as the House of Commons ever witnessed. 
 
 There can be no question whatever, that, had Disraeli failed 
 to make a telling speech. Lord Palmerston would not have had 
 the courage to come to the rescue of a Government, which in 
 that case would have been past hope ; and there can be as little 
 question that, had Lord Palmerston not taken the first step, 
 Sir James Graham would never have taken the second ; and 
 that, therefore, instead of there being, as there will now be, a 
 mere Manchester minority against the majority of the whole 
 House, the Ministers would have been overwhelmingly beaten. 
 Mr. Disraeli — personal friend, and private intimate, of Lord 
 Palmerston — knew full well the value of, and the price of, the 
 wary Viscount's aid, and, also, its consequences ; and, seeing to 
 the end, and comprehending what a great speech might pro- 
 duce, how wonderful was that effort which he made ! 
 
 Palmerston has done it all in this matter. And why ? Because 
 if Villiers's motion had been carried, the Queen would have had 
 to send for Lord John — because Lord John would not send for 
 Lord Palmerston — and because Palmerston, consequently, has 
 resolved that Lord John Russell shall never again be Premier 
 Df England. Now, let the country, which has a notion that 
 it has something to do with the Government, fully under 
 stand that the club which is elected in rather a roundabout 
 way, and which is called the House of Commons, is so com- 
 posed that on the most serious of human questions — first, 
 the question of the commercial policy of a trading people — 
 
42 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, KO. 2. 
 
 and next, the question of what should be the political morality 
 of public men — everything is decided by personal spites and 
 individual spleens. Lord John Russell stopped the way. Lord 
 Palmerston would not let Lord John go back to office : and Sir 
 James Graham having once got a good example, seized the op- 
 portunity of seconding Palmerston, and so sucessfully, that 
 Lord John himself was put in the ludicrous predicament of 
 going into the same lobby with Disraeli, or of heading the 
 Free-trade Hall section of "unpractical" Free-traders. Take 
 the names who did not rush at the Palmerston amendment, and 
 you will not find one among the many speakers of last night of 
 note or weight in the country, or, what is more to the purpose, 
 in the House ; and, as to last night, there could not have been 
 the excuse Palmerston gave on Tuesday, that it was only an 
 affair of words, and that Villiers and Disraeli really meant the 
 same thing — for last night Disraeli gave every one broadly to 
 understand — as he felt his way, he got bolder — that in his 
 Budget he had certain "remedial" measures, which would be 
 similar to those he had proposed in Opposition — those measures 
 brought forward in Opposition having been rejected as frivolous 
 by the old Parliament. What, after such explicit language — 
 wrung from him by the manly, however stupid, remonstrance 
 of Lord Granby — an honest Free-trader ought to do, was clear — 
 to insist on Villiers's motion being carried intact — first, for the 
 abstract right of the word "just," but mainly because the car- 
 rying of the Yilliers motion would have led to the resignation 
 of a set of men who still unequivocally mean to ask the coun- 
 try to compensate a class for the few years' loss of a protection 
 which enriched them for many years at the expense of the rest 
 of the community. What all the taunts of the Free-traders 
 could not do, the grotesque simplicity of Lord Granby effected, 
 and compelled Mr. Disraeli to reveal himself. Disraeli felt for 
 the moment as Peel felt when the staunch and faithful squires 
 fell away from him in 1846 ; and we may, perhaps, attribute it 
 to the bodily infirmity of the Chancellor of the Exchequer at 
 the moment, that he softened almost into tears in prematurely 
 assuring his party that he was going to be true to them after 
 all, and to swindle the nation, as all along promised. They did 
 cheer very violently at the pathos, in the peroration of which 
 was the chink of rent ; and no wonder, for it was complete 
 news, and for that very reason should have shamed the scattered 
 and envious Free-traders, Whigs, Peelites, and Palmerstonites, 
 into urgent unanimity. Yet, what was the doing of last night ? 
 Careful arrangement among the Liberals to give a lease of 
 power not only to a Tory Government, but to a class Govern- 
 ment — still resolute on robbing hands for lauds. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT. NO. 3. 43 
 
 No. 3.-^ 
 
 Che conjuror has not jumped into the quart bottle : that is the 
 yreat fact of the day. Words eaten in Hansard's full : igno- 
 niny incurred beyond estimate : vows forsworn beyond count- 
 ng : wrigglings beyond tracings : — and, at last, on the first 
 ;est of capacity to govern a country, out goes the Derby 
 Ministry under a load of contempt which not even six months' 
 issiduous practice in meanness can enable them to bear. The 
 lew House, after all, reflects, only by a majority of nineteen, 
 ;he universal feeling of distrust with which the nation regards 
 ;he men whom an accident lifted into power and place. And, 
 ifter Lord Derby, what ? We have the deluge ; what now 1 
 
 Gladstone and Disraeli faced one another last night and this 
 norning — their speeches make the whole debate; and it was 
 ;he most superb parliamentary duel I ever witnessed. They 
 ire the two men of their time, tried in that wonderful assem- 
 bly of picked men of England, where real manhood and veri- 
 ;able brain are brought to account with a rapidity which ruins 
 ill but the unmistakably genuine ; and, pitted against one 
 mother on this occasion, it was the struggle between the two 
 principles of the day — club intrigue, with class manoeuvre, 
 igainst national faith in the integrity of nationalists — of Eng- 
 ish statesmen against petty tricksters. Two greater speeches 
 ;han were delivered by these men were never heard in the 
 House of Commons ; Gladstone's (which, unhappily, is very 
 )adly reported in all the papers, from the necessity of the late 
 lour) being a development of intellectual power, and of that 
 iloquence which proceeds from commanding knowledge of 
 nankind, of which even those who allowed most largely for 
 lis gifts, never suspected him. To understand the force 
 )f Gladstone's overwhelming reply, it is necessary to ascer- 
 tain the peculiarities of Disraeli's startling three hours' 
 )ration ; and to comprehend the effect which the long battle 
 produced, it is necessary to remember that the circumstances 
 tvere extraordinary, that it was a real debate, in which speech 
 iid affect votes, and in which each orator was exhausting his 
 powers to obtain a majority. Such circumstances could only 
 3ccur in this of all recent Houses of Commons ; and such a 
 
 * Appearing Dec. 18, 1852, on the division on Mr. Disraeli's Budget. 
 
44 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 3. 
 
 scene could only result from the presence of two such master 
 minds. Disraeli had^been sitting there on his bench, under- 
 going the torture of taunts from numberless assailants for four 
 successive nights, and he was weary of it ; and it was appa- 
 rently utter desperation which induced him, to the surprise of 
 everybody, in a comparatively thin house, to rise at ten, and to 
 precipitate that general summing up of the debate which 
 should, according to all routine, have been delayed until the 
 last moment. It was altogether strikingly out of order ; and 
 from first to last everything he said and did was in keeping — 
 odd, eccentric, riskful, dangerous, desperate. This was exactly 
 the impression he produced: that he had been behind the 
 Speaker's chair, doing what Mr. Pitt used to do — forcing 
 vigour by a pint of brandy. He began with a strange voice 
 and a strange manner ; and it was a strange speech to the 
 last : — but the speech of wild genius. Take his speech as a 
 logical, presentable, defence of his Budget and of the Govern- 
 ment's financial policy (which let all who sympathise in his 
 fall remember he is hardly responsible for), and it is a ram- 
 bling, disconnected, galvanic efibrt, that needed not Mr. Glad- 
 stone's exposure. But take it as the sort of speech he used to 
 deliver when Peel was sitting on the Treasury benches, and 
 it will rank equal to his best Peelic. Insolent he was — 
 furiously insolent : trampling, crushing, destroying all before 
 him : and that his victims shrunk before his relentless sarcasm 
 is not wonderful, for in his contempt for the Grahams and 
 Goulburns, and that class, he happened to be right. It was a 
 speech which was at once accepted by the House, which filled 
 fast after he rose, as a personal speech : and there is no doubt 
 he had his audience thoroughly with him, roaring and laugh- 
 ing at him, and humouring him to the very top of his bent. 
 Nobody paused, in the swift excitement he aroused, to con- 
 sider whether this was exactly the tone of a Minister of the 
 Crown — whether, for instance, that obscene and Tristram- 
 Shandyish extract from the statistician's letter, about the 
 " reserve of the producing power of the country," was not 
 more fit for the cyder cellars than for the House of Commons. 
 The House was lost in the wit, in the fun, in the savage, vindic- 
 tive power of the orator, levelling right and left of him, and 
 careless how he wounded even Lord Derby (who, sitting in the 
 gallery, laughed heartily with the rest) — as in the passage, 
 " The new Protectionist party have inherited our principles as 
 well as our benches, and will fail, as we did." Had the divi- 
 sion gone dififerently, all this would read splendidly — as a keen 
 anticipation and enjoyment of a triumph. But, read now it is 
 the closing speech of a Minister; and, in that sense, how piti- 
 able and how unworthy ! Mr. Disraeli has been both unfortu- 
 nate and undeserving in his Ministerial career ; and he has so 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECTj KO. 3. 45 
 
 irranged as to fall without men's pity. I fear he is down 
 iually, and that he has not fallen gracefully. 
 
 It was a moment of great agitation, all men's nerves strung 
 ;o the utmost tension, when — Disraeli having flung himself 
 )ack — having delivered his strange peroration in. a screech 
 ntensified by his Retschish attitude — and after all his insults, 
 )eing still hoarsely cheered by the " gentlemen" behind him — 
 VIr. Gladstone lifted his frail body to make his bid for the 
 ^^overnment of his kind. The house, floor, and galleries, were 
 crowded as they never were before — not even on the Villiers 
 light — and the whole of that vast assembly was engulphed in 
 I roar of cheers and countercheers, which were taken up again 
 ind again, and lasted fully five minutes. The orator could 
 lot get a word out for some time, and such was the fever 
 iround him, he would, probably, not have got a hearing at all 
 )ut that the tones of his voice (his quiet manner never tells 
 Lnything) intimated that he was in a passion, and was not 
 ^oing to be put down. Mr. Gladstone's face is full of fire, 
 rigour, and pluck ; and there was no mistaking its expression 
 it that moment : at any rate, it awed even the tipsy mem- 
 bers — and, as usual, they Avere numerous — into sullen silence, 
 ind when he did get out what he wanted to say, he ter- 
 rified people into silence. His words will read as quiet and 
 jold enough ; but no one who saw and heard will ever forget the 
 jcene. It was the dignified, lofty rebuke, from an honest, gifted 
 lature, of the impudent (there is no other word) outrage of 
 Disraeli ; and, as if by magic, that intense scorn which his 
 roice and eye, rather than his language, conveyed, altered the 
 whole tone of the House, brought down a ringing, enduring 
 2heer, and — changed the fate of the day. His speech — 
 oaasterly, keen, crushing as it was of every part of the Budget 
 — amounted to nothing : the exordium and the peroration, in 
 which he appealed to the self-respect of the House not to con- 
 tinue in power a Government whose measures were tricks, and 
 w^hose eloquence was personality, did all that the division does 
 —turned out Lord Derby. So much for character vnth genius, 
 a,gainst genius only — and Mr. Gladstone himself carefully 
 separated the genius from the principles of Disraeli. And was 
 it not poetical justice that Disraeli should fall by the hand of 
 the first lieutenant of Peel? 
 
 The Budget as a composition is a test of the capacity of the 
 present Cabinet when in quiet council over cool claret and 
 pine- apple. But the debate on the Budget, spreading over 
 four brisk, vigorous, stirring, long nights, has been a ruinous 
 test of the presentable talents of Ministers as debaters. Never 
 was anything at once so ludicrous and so melancholy. Lord 
 John Manners, Mr. Walpole, and Sir John Pakington, have 
 each made desperate eflforts-.-each being a signal, and even 
 
46 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 3. 
 
 laughable failure. Think of Lord John Manners, who is about 
 as manly as Goody Two Shoes, and whose reading has been 
 confined all his life to keepsakes, rising, and with lisping assur- 
 ance too, to answer one of the most closely logical and masterly 
 financial apeeches Mr. Cobden ever made anywhere, and, per- 
 haps, the very best he ever made in the House of Commons. 
 The gods and the strangers should have grinned ; but there is ^ 
 no reason to believe that either did; for, in this enlightened 
 country, your son of a duke is regarded as a born statesman ; 
 and Lord John Manners is visibly impressed with the notion 
 that he is quite a match — Lord John having travelled much, 
 written a good deal of poetry, and seen most of the albums of 
 good society in London — on a strictly commercial question, for 
 a man who has made himself prominent above all the wonder- 
 ful commercial celebrities of England for relentlessly hard 
 common-sense, immense variety of knowledge, and unfailing 
 accuracy. Later in the same evening, Walpole (who is even 
 sillier looking than Manners) made his rotund display — the in- 
 vocation of the name of the Prophet being followed by the pro- 
 duction of the invariable fruit. A weaker, emptier speech was 
 never heard ; and the good feeling which he evidenced in the con- 
 clusion, in complimenting Disraeli, was spoiled by the manner 
 — ^boyish ; Disraeli crouching away from that elaborate friend- 
 ship, under his intense sense of the ludicrous. Pakington, next 
 (Tuesday) evening, was even worse. He is a good sort of man, 
 with a clerky sort of capacity not to blot books, and to keep papers 
 in their places — indeed, I have no doubt Pakington mends pens 
 to a miracle — and to these qualifications he has superadded 
 the knack, which country justices get by making themselves 
 busy at magistrates' meetings, of pouring out that streaky, in- 
 terminable talk, which is the curse of our English public life — 
 a talk of phrases, one phrase suggesting the other, to endless 
 circumlocutions ; a talk which is utterly independent of ideas, 
 for what idea there is, is in the phrase, and that is begotten of 
 another phrase, — each and all of them being stock-property of 
 twaddlers, and being invented by barristers and routine 
 Members of Parliament. Pakington's fluency is something 
 miraculously liquid ; and he has got that sort of stamina — one of 
 your little, broad-chested men who never say they are tired — 
 that if it was not understood on the Treasury bench that at a 
 certain point his coat-tails are to be pulled, I believe he would 
 go on for ever, in very delight at the circular facility with 
 which he pours out his meaningless palaver. On Tuesday he 
 put himself up as a debater, — in a full House — to answer the 
 smart, telling hits of Bernal Osborne, and the heavy, pound- 
 ing blows of Graham ; and at it he went — in a speech which 
 was all exordium, for a Pakington peroration could not at all 
 be got at in one Parliament, — and an exordium, too, which 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 3. 47 
 
 vas without point, sense, argument, or illustration — all fatuous 
 "utilities and complacent frivolities, adding nothing but an 
 )re-rotundo " oh yes, oh yes ! " to a contingent proclamation of 
 lomething which didn't arrive that night, and of course weary- 
 ng the House into a bad temper. Well, these men are the 
 ;rack orators of the Ministry, after Disraeli and Derby ! On 
 considering their qualifications, one feels compelled to acknow- 
 edge that Lord Derby did show judgment when in June, 1851, 
 le refused to take office, because he didn't think a Government 
 jould get on with these same gentlemen. Lord Derby was 
 ][uite right. 
 
 No doubt we must bear in mind that the defects of the 
 Vlinister are magnified by the "array of talent" the Opposition 
 jan collect against them ; while the picture is rendered more 
 ippallingly melancholy by the solid, silent background of the 
 'party." Tories of England! recognise the fact that, in de- 
 ■ence of your Tory Government's Budget, only one man, outside 
 )ffice, can be found to make a speech which had a chance of 
 3eing listened to, or of effect, and that man was a renegade 
 Tom the Radical ranks — Sir Edward Lytton. He was listened 
 :o ; but I question the efiect — for what he said was worthless, 
 md it was said in a way which could not recommend it. Sir 
 Edward's appearance is not happy ; and on looking at him, 
 ^ou wonder how such a dismal-looking personage could turn 
 3ut some of the best novels of the day. And there is no bright- 
 ening of the eyes or face when he is in action: he lifts his 
 roice up and down, and he sways his body backwards and 
 forwards, and he wields his long ape-like arm right and left 
 pvith a dull, heavy regularity that suggests nothing of the 
 emotional, poetic intellect he insists in all his prefaces upon 
 possessing. He had got his speech off this day week ; and he 
 plodded through it as a dull boy would through one of 
 Chatham's "My lords, I am astonished and shocked to hear" 
 Drations. But he was cheered, no doubt; and his complete 
 turn-about into a Derbyite deserved the Tory applause, and he 
 sat down intensely satisfied, plunging into an orange with the 
 avidity of a Demosthenes, after having upset a Philip for the 
 sixth time — seeming, as he sucked it, and yellowed his pale face 
 v\ith it, supremely ludicrous. The Whigs, Peelites, Radicals, 
 though they had been silent, and patient, and quiet, while he 
 was getting through his speech, were quite alive to the fun of 
 the whole thing ; and such a yell of laughter as they gave 
 when Mr. Gladstone, in his solemn, dry tones, expressed his 
 doubts if any man had impugned the character and the con- 
 duct which Bulwer had volunteered to justify, ought to have 
 dissatisfied the author of "Pelham" with public life. Disraeli 
 spoke subsequently of the "masterly speech" of his hon. friend, 
 and was glad enough, very likely, of the aid ; and in the same 
 
48 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 3. 
 
 way he would speak of the "masterly speech" which Lord 
 Jocelyn delivered in favour of Ministers. Some of the free- 
 trade speeches have been excellent ; pre-eminently that of 
 Mr. Robert Lowe on Monday. Mr. Lowe's was a refined, 
 subtle analysis of the Budget, not aiming at hits or techni- 
 cal exposures, and produced a great effect, as is demonstrated 
 by the repeated reference made to him subsequently by all 
 the principal speakers in the debate. Mr. Lowe came into the 
 House with a vast reputation for ability of varied kind, the 
 reputation being all the more telling that it was not a repu- 
 tation among the nation, but in society and about clubs ; and 
 he has apparently taken advantage of the prestige in his favour 
 to glide, with tact, into a House of Commons position, — but 
 because of the tact, not because of the prestige. 
 
 A ^^y^ /// 
 
 ^i^^ ^^^-:^Z^ 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 6. 65 
 
 Jews, and therefore invited that providential vindictiveness 
 which the member for Dublin Trinity specifies, for of course a 
 just God is not technical, and does not wait until the two 
 Houses have agreed — we found Mr. Napier snuglj in office last 
 year, and enjoying himself as heartily as a deaf statesman 
 possibly could. In the same way, applying the same tests, the 
 House does not even compliment Mr. Spooner, or Mr. James 
 Macgregor, Mr. Spooner's seconder in the Maynooth matter, 
 upon fanaticism. The men of the world, who are the majority, 
 and who know that Spooner would allow Beelzebub to bank 
 with him, and who are satisfied that the Chairman of the South 
 Eastern Railway is one of the most rational and clever of 
 mankind, will insist, and vote accordingly, that these hyper- 
 perfect Protestant persons are only playing the game, and 
 that a clumsy one, of a party which plays bigotry, having 
 revoked on protection, as its last card. You cannot expect 
 that Jones — who is a Protestant, because he has three 
 church-livings in his gift, and who has dined to-day with 
 Smith, a Roman Catholic and a Papist, because he was born 
 one, but would, nevertheless, as soon confess to you as to Dr. 
 McHale — will tumble into the House after Cura9oa at eleven 
 and vote that the teaching of Maynooth is inimical to the 
 order of the realm. Spooner, who seems to have found out 
 some ecclesiastical Holywell Street, where naughty Latin 
 books are sold, may quote to him worse things than Casanova 
 ever suggested, and the inference, as to the possible con- 
 sequences on youthful and pious Irish minds, may be awful. 
 But Jones won't believe a word of it. He has smoked 
 with G. H. Moore for years — been attentive to the mots of 
 Duffy all through the session, and he and Keogh have been 
 together nights and nights at a stretch; he knows that these 
 are the Pope's brass band — the crack Catholics— and he refuses 
 to be frightened by Spooner ; and when he gets Macgregor 
 into the dining-room, he nudges him in the ribs, leers know- 
 ingly, and asks him if he knows what are Forbes Mackenzie's 
 calculations as to the votes all this piety will bring. If the 
 bigotry succeeds, well and good — Jones respects it ; but if it 
 fails, as it has failed this week, he laughs at it. We cannot 
 interfere for humanity and liberty, " and that sort of thing," 
 abroad, until we have put matters straight at home, and this 
 week you could see Jones was gradually coming to the conclu- 
 sion that the Protestantism and the Christianity appealed to 
 lagainst the claims of Catholics and Jews, could not be very 
 ft well worth giving a monopoly to, seeing that when Parliament 
 is traced, in a committee-room, to its source, it would appear 
 that theological anxieties but slightly influence its character- 
 istic vitality. So, analyzing the votes of this week, it is clear, 
 'Mr. Napier, that Christianity is made an open question. A 
 
66 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 6. 
 
 few years more, and we shall have some great Hindu merchant 
 settling in London, affecting the citizens, giving good dinners, 
 and at last getting in ; and then the question of the day will 
 be, why should not the Juggernat interest be represented? 
 Why not? 
 
 Mr. Disraeli, sitting through it all on Thursday, sublimely 
 cynical, could have suggested to Rothschild that seats are 
 attainable to Hebrews with less pother, by doing what " Tan- 
 cred" describes gentlemen doing at Jerusalem — accepting con- 
 version to Christianity from the English bishop, and when the 
 missionary supplies from the tea-table interest fall short, strik- 
 ing for wages. Mr. Disraeli takes the oath on the faith of a 
 Christian, like a sensible man, and yet writes " Coningsby," 
 and draws " Sidonia," whose ancestors defied by eluding the 
 Spanish Inquisition. Not heroic, no doubt ; and yet the prac- 
 tical classes think Disraeli wiser than Rothschild ; or, at any 
 rate, the creator of Sidonia, and the writer of the celebrated 
 Jew-Pontius-Pilate paragraph in the " Political Biography," 
 heads the party whose mot cCordre is Church and State and the 
 Protestant Constitution. Only one condition is apparently 
 made by the party with their leader — that though he will not 
 be with them against the Jews, he shall not be against them ; 
 that if he votes with Lord John (should not the Tory leader 
 talk always gently at the Whig statesman who makes Jews 
 freemen 1) he shall not speak with Lord John. And this year, 
 as in the year before last, Disraeli fulfils the pact — by giving 
 his vote for his race (as to their creed, he is as devoted to it as — 
 no matter what other statesman — to the details of the Christian 
 dispensation), but giving it a silent vote ; sitting among his 
 party and enduring in sullen tameness all the insults which 
 red-faced and respectable saints like Inglis, and moustached 
 muscadins like Sir Robert Peel, poured down on Thursday, on 
 the Caucasian aristocracy of humanity. From Disraeli's side 
 rose Napier — who had served under Disraeli — ^to give notice 
 about God's vengeance. At Disraeli's side stood Inglis, who 
 had followed Disraeli into every lobby for six years, when that 
 high-minded man was proving from Holy Writ that a Jew in 
 Parliament would carry destruction to the British Constitution 
 — although he did not make it apparent that Holy Writ was 
 dedicated to the proposers of Magna Charta. Over Disraeli's 
 head thundered the impetuous Sir Robert Peel — than whom no 
 man has a better right to think ill of the Jews, since who has 
 suffered more from them ? — when that ingenious youth (having 
 ascertained that his brother was booked to vote for Rothschild) 
 demonstrated, without mentioning that Lola Montes was his 
 authority, that the Jews were the enemies of freedom (is not 
 Mr. Sloman, of Chancery Lane, a Jew 1) and that the house of 
 the Rothschilds constituted the principal support of the 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 6. 67 
 
 despotic Emperors of Austria, France, and Russia. It might 
 have been remembered by the fiery Sir Robert that the Cabinet 
 of Disraeli, per Malmesbury, was the firm, not to say the affec- 
 tionate, ally of those potentates ; and that the unfilial owner of 
 Tamworth, who never saw so much in his father as other peo- 
 ple did, and who, for his part, thinks Disraeli a " doosed good " 
 fellow, (fee. &c., was an inveterate supporter of that Cabinet. 
 Mr. Disraeli may have detected the perverse logic — Mr. Dis- 
 raeli saw and felt all the absurdities of his own situation, and 
 of his friends' argumentation — for it was not difficult to per- 
 ceive by the changeful shrinking and smiling of his demeanour 
 that he was not a very proud or a peculiarly happy man on 
 this occasion, when he was sitting as the frightful example of 
 an Inglis's preaching. But Mr. Disraeli threw the heroism and 
 the work and the honour on Lord John Russell ; and perhaps 
 he assisted Lord John thus far, that he manoeuvred his friend 
 Mr. Walpole — leader fro hdc vice — into keeping quiet, into 
 suppressing all the respectable elocutionists of the party — 
 therefore in leaving the opposition to a Sibthorpe (who — the 
 dirtiest old man in Christendom — objected that Hebrews don't 
 wash) and to an Inglis, in short, to the traditional obstructives 
 of the Conservative classes, and accordingly in making the 
 whole fuss ludicrous. After all there was as much avoidance 
 of oratory on the other side. Lord John was eminently and 
 curtly dull ; and it is a consequence of a Government of " all 
 the talents" that debating, which cannot be all on one side, 
 must be tepid. 
 
 t^l 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 7. 
 
 No. 7. 
 
 March 12. 
 When the present €rOvernment was formedy a pleasant evening 
 paper, bidding for the resumption of quasi- Whig Ministerial- 
 ism, set about discovering a justification for the excess of 
 strength in the Cabinet ; and it was ascertained that the only 
 way in which the soup could escape destruction from so over- 
 manned a cuisine was by a general understanding being come 
 to that there should be no coucert — that each Minister should 
 go to work separately^ and that, accordingly, the departments 
 being well looked after, the Ministry should take care of itself. 
 The advice was practical in its application to a coalition not 
 very sure of its basis y and clearly it has been taken. It is 
 true there is a Cabinet Council every Saturday : but these are 
 all about Montenegro and Milan — domestic policy stays at 
 home, in the departmental bureaux. Thus, we see intensive 
 individual activity among the Ministers — collectively, profound 
 idleness. The Ministry, as a whole, is doing nothing — is still 
 representative of nothing — is avoiding all grappling with diffi- 
 culties, arrangement of which would give fame to the Aber- 
 deen Cabinet — which, to Lord John's chagrin, will doubtless 
 be the historical title. But take the Government to pieces, 
 and you will be astonished and delighted at the bustle going 
 on in every separate sphere. Deduct last night from the week 
 when the Tory Opposition had the fas^ and you will find 
 a Minister the hero of the orders of each night — coming out 
 to fight singly, and in rotation. It is the only plan with " all 
 the talents;" the worst of managers shirk a constellation of 
 all the stars, simply from fear of the consequences. And the 
 public, finding the Parliamentary proceedings dull, conclude 
 that they are useful. It is indeed a session of work ; but may 
 we never have such another ; for Parliament is our principal 
 public amusement. 
 
 Do any of those people who pat their morning paper ap- 
 plaudingly, and say, "Ah, the House is really at it now," con- 
 consider how the members sufi'er? Take Mr. Vernon Smith's 
 objection, this week, to the proposal of a committee on " oaths," 
 that there was no use appointing any more committees, since 
 there were no members disengaged ; and, as illustrating the 
 same fact, Mr. E wart's notice of motion for a Select Committee 
 to inquire whether "the constitution and action of the Select 
 Committees of this House might not be improved by generally 
 diminishing the number of members composing such com- 
 
PARLIAMEXTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 7. 69 
 
 mifctees, and by making provision for their giving more un- 
 divided attention to subjects submitted to their consideration 
 tnan they are able to do under the present svstem." Certainly 
 we hnd twenty Irish members dividing on "Thursday night in 
 tayour ot the addition of more members to the India Com- 
 mittee ; but you may set that down to fiery zeal— or the con- 
 sideration that those who thus divided knew that they would 
 Tiot be called upon to sit, notwithstanding Mr. Maguire's sua. 
 gestion that a Papist would have more sympathy than a Pro- 
 testant with a Hindoo. It is not necessary, however, to trust 
 to indirect evidences ; go into the committee lobby between 
 twelve and four ; study the ^groups," and you will appreciate 
 what the honour of a seat means in 1853. It means six hours 
 of private busmess, which is not your own ; and eight more 
 iiours of public business, which is your constituents'. After 
 such a routine it is not pleasant to have the fact blurted out, 
 as It was by rash Mr, Whalley, this week, to the indignant 
 amazement of Mr. Brotherton, that the private business of the 
 House of Commons is *^ disgracefully and inefficiently con- 
 ducted. Mr. Brotherton repelled the charge ; how could the 
 youngest member (Mr. Whalley was elected since the general 
 •5 ir^'^r "^ anything about the matter? "I told him " 
 said Mr. Hume-Mr. Hume, the "inveterate reformer," should 
 iinow. Mr. Hume is as indiscreet with his own nest as un- 
 generous with the nests of others; and so there it stands on re- 
 cord for general study-a confession in the House that the 
 House does not know how to conduct private business ; conduct 
 of public business being, of course, an open question of some 
 date feeemg what is going on— the crowds of committees, the 
 time they take, the dissatisfaction they give, the frightful ex- 
 pense they cause— it is impossible not to suspect that Mr. Hume 
 IS accidentally right. After all, therefore, when-the House 
 being up after a closing heavy division— one sees a jaded M.P. 
 tainting at the c oak-room, into his paletot, and with hardly 
 strength enough left-he has been "at it" since 10 A.M.-to 
 light his cigar; when one follows his shaky steps to the cab- 
 stand, and observes that his direction is home, and not to a 
 ball-even the young M.P.'s now, Mr. Whalley included, avoid 
 suppers at Evans' and coffee in the Hajmaiket-the pity is 
 shared by some slight contempt, such as is felt for workmen 
 who bung e with their tools. A thousand miles in a thousand 
 hours is clever, in the way of a wager ; but we cannot respect 
 the energy which insists on going over two sides of a triaLle 
 when one would bring to the end. Mr. Ewart's plan of pro- 
 viding for an increase of subjects by decreasing the numbers on 
 the committees, would not do, for this reason : the surface 
 spread might one day become so thin that we should have 
 committees of units. Let a practical nation consider what 
 
70 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 7. 
 
 would become of us if a Parliamentary quorum should be one 
 — and that quorum, say Sibthorpe. How he would report. 
 
 Government, meanwhile, is winning good opinion by single 
 combats. Mr. Card well, on Monday, made friends of the ship- 
 ping interest by adroit concessions, suggested to him by his old 
 constituents ; * and his saying, while he spoke, that he was 
 frightfully dry, was the proof that he was making an oratorical 
 hit. Mr. Cardwell has got on in the world by being dull ; and' 
 would sink at once if he were momentarily guilty of a spark 
 of cleverness — supposing he could get it up. He is of that 
 class of men who cannot understand what people seem to admire 
 in Mr. Disraeli ; who mumble " charlatan" when they hear of 
 anybody being brilliant, and who console themselves for never 
 being admired, though so immensely respected, by the conscious- 
 ness that they were never late for an appointment — hoping that 
 posterity, knowing that, may be induced to invite them down. 
 He was Peel's pet, and is to be studied as the exemplar of the 
 class Sir Robert encouraged and educated for the government 
 of England. A great master is known by his pupils, in a great 
 degree, and it is Sir Robert's Peel's condemnation that he left 
 us no public men to lead. You may think of Gladstone, but 
 Gladstone only succeeds to Peel's place — he is not a descend- 
 ant. Sir Robert Peel, as he grew in statesmanship, marked a 
 transition era, from the Pitts, and Sheridans, and Cannings, to 
 the " business members," the product of the reformed House ; 
 and he has left us with the red tape tone intensified into our 
 public life. What could a "man of business" — his great boast 
 — leave us, as his representatives, but clerks 1 From his son, 
 Mr. Frederick Peel, to Mr. Cardwell, those whom he led up to the 
 Treasury, have been clerks, and only clerks. It is odd, but Sir 
 Robert Peel never picked up a great man. He hated the 
 brilliant man, even snubbed Mr. Disraeli, and found, in the 
 end, reason to repent that oversight. But, perhaps, he knew 
 his age — the sort of men who would suit — and, clearly, dull, 
 and decorous, soulless, but accurate and laborious, Mr. Cardwell 
 has fame and position as an administrator, statesmen having 
 gone, for the moment, out of fashion. So, to repeat, his very 
 dissertation on ships, on Monday, did himself and the Go- 
 vernment good service. The shipowners said next morning, 
 ^'Practical man, Cardwell, sir;" and the Trinity House said 
 the Government was more rational than that remarkable cor- 
 poration expected, or had reason to expect. In the same way 
 Mr. James Wilson, who is usually lucratively quiet in office, 
 gave immense satisfaction in the city by his careful arguments 
 against new Assurance Companies. It was a good point to 
 make, at the right time, speculation having turned in a difier- 
 
 * The electors of Liverpool. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 7. 71 
 
 ent direction ; and if he sjet out a good report, he will ever 
 after be regarded by the big offices about the Mansion House 
 as a great statesman, which would be a mistake, for he is only 
 a great clerk, being to the statesman what the actuary is to 
 the political economist. 
 
 Let it not, however, be concluded that the Government is 
 only financial and statistical. Colonel Mure (a wonderful 
 scholar, who cannot talk as well as — say Joseph Hume — where- 
 fore, though an old member, he is nearly a stranger) is evi- 
 dently acting for Lord John Russell in the matter of the 
 National Gallery ; so that the Cabinet is looking after its didi- 
 cisse fiddlier properly, perhaps because Mr. Disraeli started so 
 boldly in the same direction when he had the official chance ; 
 while, on the other hand, Mr. Fitzroy, cleverly backed by Mr. 
 Phinn — who is an immense success among the new members, 
 principally because he talks in the House without a trace of 
 the Hall — is positively chivalric, on behalf of his colleagues, 
 in his attempt to check the characteristic brutality of British 
 husbands upon their wives. The introduction of such a bill as 
 his is the more commendable that it is gratuitous, there being 
 no feminine pressure from without, asking Government to give 
 themselves supererogatory work ; and as he proves himself 
 " quite a lady's man," it would not be astonishing if an orga- 
 nization of back parlours were got up to induce him to resist 
 callous Lord Campbell's Divorce Commission recommendations, 
 the injustice done to women in these recommendations being 
 obvious, as any peeress "in her own right" would easily show. 
 
 But it is out of the question to enumerate all that the Go- 
 vernment is doing — departmen tally. Every man of them is 
 busy, and busy independently, for it is obvious Lord Clarendon 
 is the only Minister troubled with the advice of colleagues. 
 Mr. Gladstone, every one sees, is acting quite independently — 
 oblivious of the "leader" next him; and, as on Thursday 
 night, sometimes forgetting himself. That was the second time 
 he had done damage to the Government — a serious evil, beyond 
 the temporary reasons, as encouraging the clerks to look down 
 on the brilliant men. In fact, it was clerk Cardwell, on Thurs- 
 day week, who saved the Government from the results of a 
 speech of the brilliant Gladstone ; and because there was no 
 clerk at hand this last time, the brilliant man led a host into a 
 minority lobby. There can be very little question that but for 
 the running away — a harsh phrase of dignified and responsible 
 representatives, but a sad fact — on the 3rd,* Mr. Disraeli would 
 have beaten the Government, and that on a free-trade motion ; 
 and assuredly it is a great impeachment of the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer's "discretion" that he risked such a confusion 
 
 * On a question about the free importation of butter, cheese, &c. 
 
72 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, ITO. 7. 
 
 as was seen in next day's division list — Disraeli, with Radicals 
 like Walmsley, voting in favour of free trade against a free- 
 trade Government — ^the Government list including Charles 
 Villiers — Charles Villiers actually voting against free trade ! 
 In one respect the division list was useful to constituencies ; it 
 told who are the men — healthy Radicals some of them are sup- 
 posed to be — who will stand by the present Ministry at all 
 hazards, whatever their no measures or their Budget, merely 
 because they are the present Ministry. But Mr. Gladstone had 
 no such purpose in view, and therefore did a silly thing in his 
 haughty opposition to friendly Mr. Hume, who would have 
 been very glad at an excuse to drop his dangerous motion. But 
 he did something more than a silly thing in opposing Lord 
 Robert Grovesnor, on Thursday, when that utilitarian nobleman 
 held in his hand a power of attorney to get a majority on the 
 attorney certificate question. Opposition to the motion was a 
 matter of course, but his hasty hauteur played the deuce. This 
 time there was no temptation to the friends of Government 
 to run away — it was not disgraceful to be in the opposite 
 lobby ; no Disraeli was trying to trap them : and they took the 
 advantage of the nonchalant defiance of the most potent of 
 professions, to oblige their solicitors, and to return their re- 
 turns. Consequence — Mr. Gladstone was put in a foolish, the 
 Government in an ignominious, position. They got Mr. Hume 
 into their lobby — Mr. Hume was, of course (poor blundering old 
 gentleman), anxious to make up for his doings that night week 
 — but they had driven people they could not spare into op- 
 position, and provided a division list full of curiosities — for 
 instance, Mr. James Sadleir, brother to Mr. John Sadleir, a 
 Lord of the Treasury, but also a solicitor, voted against them ! 
 — which will seriously hamper them, if they still venture to 
 leave the certificates untouched in the Budget. This couple 
 of disasters, their first, provoke injurious doubts about the 
 financial preparations promised to be completed early after 
 Easter ; and it is desirable that on the question of the Budget, 
 at least, the departments should meet together for some sort of 
 corporate conclusions. Evidently, Mr. Gladstone is not cautious 
 enough, without a clerk or two to check him. His Pegasus is 
 not quite trained to the jog-trot yet. 
 
 This week's division list will show that "Christianity" was 
 again an "open question:" Lord John, in his department — 
 viz. to look after civil and religious liberty — acting like the 
 rest, with perfect independence, if not of those of the Ministers 
 who are in the Commons, certainly of more than one of them 
 in the Lords, and assuredly undertaking to strike oiF the last 
 fetter, &c., &c., without being very sure of the aid of the file- 
 not to mention the rank of "ordinary supporters." This divi- 
 sion is the test of our " progress ;" and yet, after all, it appears, 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 7. 73 
 
 in this new Parliament which is starting the latter half of the 
 nineteenth century, the head of the department of civil and 
 religious liberty could only get a majority of 51, which is dis- 
 creditably small to the Commons, and not large enough to effect 
 the desired intimidation of the Lords. The episodical signs of 
 progress, however, are more gratifying than the main indications 
 furnished by Mr. Hayter (who whipped his best last night, and 
 he is the greatest whipper-in that ever lived). It was very 
 grand to hear Lord John, with his head and coat tails thrown 
 back in that dignified attitude which is inseparably associated 
 with representative institutions, asking Sir Frederick Thesiger 
 and the Tories whether they were justified in feeling indignant 
 with the persecutors of the Madiai, while they themselves were 
 proscribing the Jews 1 This is a point which suggests great 
 mental progress in Lord John ; and it is fair to say the hint 
 told tremendously on a well-dined House. If men and Ministers 
 would take to that sort of argument oftener, we should have 
 less cant stopping the way. For instance, how easily that weary 
 debate in the Lords on Monday, upon Lord Clancarty's argu- 
 ment against the Irish national system of education, could 
 have been stopped, if Lord Aberdeen had had the courage to 
 put the point — *' Why, my lords, for heaven's sake don't inter- 
 cept our denunciations of the McHales, who denounce the 
 Godless colleges." But your grave statesmen can't often venture 
 on the tu quoqvs with its full effect ; and th^re are the dull 
 dogs who can venture, but who cannot appreciate — as Vincent 
 Scully, who closed the debate, and who yet missed the percep- 
 tion, that when the Roman Catholic members are ranged in a 
 body in favour of the admission of the Jews to Parliament against 
 the par excellence Protestant party ranged against that special 
 phase of religious liberty, it cannot be quite true, as enthusi- 
 astic abhorrers of the Pope too systematically assume, that a 
 Papist is necessarily less tolerant than a Protestant. As Lionel 
 Rothschild would say — our Madiai are in " Sequin Court." 
 
 Perhaps the pleasantest fact about last night's debate is that 
 it was so fearfully dull. The intolerants were so conscious of 
 the sham they were getting through, that they mumbled their 
 bigotry in the humblest of keys ; and the debaters on the other 
 side felt so sensibly their zeal was a formality, that no efforts 
 enabled them to be interesting. The world had made up its 
 mind about the whole matter — the division was foreknown to a 
 name — and the simulation of eagerness, of intolerance on one 
 side, and virtuous indignation on the other, could not be got 
 up. Sir F. Thesiger (for one reason, because about the most 
 Jewish-looking gentleman within the bar) was hardly the man 
 to lead a supremely Christian question, for there is a popular 
 prejudice fatal to the New Testament pretensions of barristers 
 in good practice ; and some such thought may have been busy 
 
74 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT^ NO. 7. 
 
 in Mr. Disraeli's head. It was curious to notice that the 
 moment Sir Frederick rose to move his amendment, Mr. 
 Disraeli took his hat from under his seat, pulled down his 
 vest, and — walked home. The vindicator of Caiaphas need 
 not have spoken — need not have voted— for has he not 
 WTitten enough 1 But should he not have listened, at least, 
 to his own Attorney-General, proving that the presence of a 
 Hebrew in the Commons would be an impertinence to Provi- 
 dence? Far bolder was Mr. Osborne, who took this oppor- 
 tunity of emerging from the taciturnity which office has 
 imposed on him, to make a speech, the least merit of which is, 
 that it demonstrated Sir Frederick's history to be as bad as 
 Mr. Pinnock's. It was a very good speech, considering that 
 there was nothing to be said, and that the orator spoke 
 merely in order that it should not be remarked of him next 
 day, as of Mr. Disraeli, that he had been silent. But even 
 under these circumstances it would have been better if it had 
 been spoken on some other bench than that directly behind 
 the leader of the House. When a good debater gets into 
 office, and. that a subordinate one, he at once becomes account- 
 able to his chiefs in the Cabinet ; and ease under " responsi- 
 bility" does not come all at once — though, really. Sir William 
 Molesworth must be excepted, who last week, on the Canada 
 Clergy Reserves, made a better speech — it was dashing, per- 
 sonal, vivid — than he ever made out of the office he has at last 
 been caught in. People said of Mr. Osborne, last night, how- 
 ever, that it was " Osborne with the chill 07^," — an Indian in 
 continuations for the first time, using his tomahawk selon les 
 convenances — decidedly afraid to " strike," and carefully avoid- 
 ing that friendly and familiar " a laugh" (a reporter's definition 
 of universal merriment) which was waiting on him — which came 
 to attend him from the library — even from the most westerly 
 club — and which he yet did not dare to evoke. However, it is an 
 age of business, and we must consent to have our wits bought up : 
 and, failing Osborne last night, the humour took refuge in 
 Henry Drummond ; and he rewarded them by giving his inci- 
 dental opinion — observe that he was taking the solemn Chris- 
 tian ground against the bill — that Cain was the first Dissenter. 
 The mot, like most of Mr. Drummond's, was about the lobbies 
 and the clubs in an hour : and people said " How good :" and 
 the same people went in to vote reverently against Lionel 
 Rothschild making the acquaintance of Mr. Speaker. " Damme, 
 Sir, what would become of the lower orders, Sir, without reli- 
 gion ? " 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 
 
 No. 8. 
 
 March 19. 
 It is not the first-placed people who are Premiers and leaders, 
 or there would be frequent national scrapes and bizarreries. 
 The French fashions will 7tot be ruled by the French Empress, 
 and the English nation may, in the same way, be permitted to 
 refuse to identify itself with the English Parliament in regard 
 to such moral matters as the Petition Committees are just at 
 present adjudicating upon. Eugenie has too long a waist, which 
 justifies sartorial revolt ; and the House of Commons has too ex- 
 pansive a conscience, — and, though we accept their measures, we 
 must decline their morality. At least, it is to be hoped that 
 the respectable classes, when they meet or write to Members, 
 are making such mental reservations as amount to a belief that 
 the existing House of Commons, as it turns its silver, or some- 
 times golden lining in the committee lobbies, is not, at all 
 events, representative of the average honour, honesty, purity, 
 and independence of the remarkably enlightened British 
 people. The unenfrachised certainly are entitled to rejoice 
 that the 1,000,000 men who have votes are exceptional persons, 
 and that England is not to be held responsible (Hwould be so 
 awkward after our eternal contrasts of ourselves with other 
 nations) for the figure of Cloacina being substituted for that 
 of Liberty in those market-places where hustings are most 
 erected. For the talk on the matter, more particularly among 
 the " people's party," is of the most unreserved description ; 
 and there is an indignant eagerness, because so many members 
 are beiug unseated and so much corruption eliminated, to 
 take for granted that the rottenness is universal, and that the 
 whole imperial constituency is given to drink and imbecility 
 in the rumpling presence of promises of bl. to the hand of 
 Matthew Marsliall. Whether so comprehensive a deduction 
 from the proceedings of the committees, even as illustrated 
 in Mr. Cobden's way, by reference to Dod, — and by recalling 
 such a corespondence as that of the Marquis of Londonderry 
 about his treasure in the County Down — is not somewhat un- 
 sound, may be a question ; but how the gentlemen and the 
 journals who believe all this of their race and land can find 
 it in their faces to give themselves airs — for instance, in the 
 criticism on Franklin Pierce's grand appeal to the States, and 
 can go on smirking in the jog-trot faith that we are heading 
 civilisation, and that the French are contemptible, may be 
 
76 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 8. 
 
 allowed to bewilder the brains of persons who have a weakness 
 for facing all sorts of facts, and first of all those under our 
 noses, such as in the committee rooms Cloacae. How, indeed, in 
 such circumstances Mr. Spooner can think it worth while to 
 devote himself to stopping the way of the people to Sydenham 
 on Sundays, instead of arranging for a rush to Australia out of 
 the way of the sulpjiuric visitation which lesser crimes called 
 upon as good cities as London, is a question which only those 
 are capable of answering who can appreciate the psychological 
 phenomenon evidenced in men insisting on sanding sugar 
 before calling to prayers, and remaining innocent of any con- 
 sciousness of inconsistency. You see Mr. Spooner, who is 
 a thorough man of business, of keen brains, and great tact, 
 sitting in his committee-room, Group 0, and getting from 
 witnesses evidence which only the agent behind knows to be 
 perjury, but which the impressionable Birmingham banker is 
 convinced does demonstrate that the smaller shopkeeper and 
 disengaged " freeman " class in Great Britain are rogues ; and 
 you would think that a knowledge of that fact would have 
 some effect on Mr. Spooner's views of public life. But no ; you 
 watch him pass jauntily along the lobbies, looking good- 
 naturedly and happily at all mankind in his way ; and when 
 you get into the gallery you are just in time to see a yellow- 
 faced little man rising, who, you subsequently find, is this very 
 same chairman of Group 0, expostulating with the Senate upon 
 their indecent tendency to allow the Briton that never shall be a 
 slave to go to Norwood on a particular day called Sunday ; or still 
 more vehemently entreating the patrons of Mr. Coppock at pre- 
 sent, the Government, not to unchristianise the Legislature and 
 the age by admitting inside the bar (he is always outside — so it 's 
 a question of three feet) a large-nosed, fat-eyed, unenergetic 
 man, who is a Hebrew, but who also has the best French, and 
 therefore Christian cook, in London. When you read or hear 
 such confessions about the voting classes in England as were 
 made in the course of the Bridgenorth and Blackburne debates 
 on Tuesday, you would expect, as a matter of course, to have a 
 resolution in favour of national mourning, or national prayers, or 
 of the Speaker taking to sackcloth and ashes, of stopping all legis- 
 lation and all action until something is done to purify the land; 
 something which should be to the immorality of the nation what 
 the great London Tunnel sewers will be to the filth of London — 
 very deep draining — so as to clear away out to the Pacific that 
 electoral sediment, from the bribed to the briber — the Brown 
 and the Coppock — in which so many English gentlemen who 
 despise the French nation have soiled their fingers. You 
 would think — to continue your wonderment — that there would 
 be no more talk of a new Reform Bill, but rather that there 
 would be a universal demand for a return of the era before 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 8. 77 
 
 1832, when there were pocket boroughs indeed, but which may 
 be said to be to the Canterburys (moral Canterbury, which 
 ruined G. S. Smythe because he fought a duel !) and the Nor- 
 wiches, what a monopolised lorette is to a wholly lost and un- 
 happy woman. You would think Lord John would go on his 
 knees and ask pardon of Sir Robert Inglis and Mr. Herries — • 
 old Reform Bill opponents — for having led the nation into 
 such disgrace. You would think Sir William Molesworth 
 would recant faith in humanity, and that Mr. Roebuck would 
 rise from his sick bed to urge on the Senate the expediency of 
 a monocracy, and such a coup d^etat as would make the Earl of 
 Cardigan first minister, with Prince Albert at the Mint. You 
 would think anything but what is done — much weeping at the 
 frailty of an enlightened nation, but grant of the new writ 
 nevertheless — and the orders of the day. You hope it is all 
 right ; only you are glad Lord Brougham had the courage to 
 present that petition to the Peers from Robert Owen ; and you 
 are sure that as the committees prove the established system 
 to be a dead failure, Robert Owen's might be worth the trial. 
 This you are satisfied about, that while Coppock is so heartily 
 greeted in the lobby, Mr. Spooner's mind may be more easy 
 about the admission of one not astute Jew among 654 New 
 Testament devotees. 
 
 But, however determined not to act, in these corruption 
 matters, consistently with words and facts — however weakly 
 shirking the laying down of broad principles, legislation ac- 
 cording to which would be the Reform Bill, by revolutionising 
 the whole^electoral system — it is still evident that the shadows 
 of the committees are over the House, that there is sorrow and 
 regret, and that if Lord John had the boldness and the honour 
 to become worthy of the occasion, he would carry all before 
 him. It would not do for the irresponsible but the conscien- 
 tious to propose a resolution, such as is wanted, such as the 
 people (that is pure and honest) would rejoice at ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, the orders of the day are read, and the thoughtless, 
 and the careless, and the cynical are allowed to carry on " busi- 
 ness" — which wtiist be attended to, whatever the disgust of 
 Providence at national sin. Hence a weary night of an Irish 
 debate (an Irish row, as Lord Clarendon said, in honour of St. 
 Patrick's day), which was on a question whether Celtic savages 
 or Saxon ruffians were most in the wrong in a reciprocal 
 massacre ; about which no one, out of the miserable circle of 
 Irish partisan barristers, with Four Courts' powers of mislead- 
 ing and mispronunciation, could possibly care one curse ; but 
 which, in the subdued tone that has come over the conscious 
 House, was permitted patiently to whirl and worry through a 
 long night ; the only result being a demonstration that the Irish 
 bar, of whom the best specimens oratorised on Thursday, is a 
 
78 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 8. 
 
 confederation not more intellectual, and less grammatical, than 
 the greasy class who sustain the fame of British mind and 
 eloquence under the influence of turpentine and water, at the 
 Temple Forum, Fleet Street. Hence, too, the very complex 
 debate on exhausted topics, treated by used-up speakers, last 
 night ; and you could detect in the languor of the talking 
 and still more in the languor of the hearing — a climax of that 
 desultory weariness and want of earnestness about everything 
 which set in with the committees — profound gratification that 
 after the division there was to come the Easter holidays — a 
 respite from Spooner, Pakington, and the striking of new 
 committees, and virtuous Chairmen appearing at the bar with 
 a '^Tekel Upharsin," to be put on the journals, for the benefit 
 of sitting and perspiring members. For very many years, 
 since I took to a taste for studying contemporary history, as it 
 is manufactured in Westminster, I have always been in the 
 habit of asking why there were holidays at Easter ; and nobody 
 could ever satisfy me that the custom had a justification. To 
 eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, or plum-pudding on the 25th 
 of December, because you always did so, and your fathers 
 before you, is to make yourself ill with good and sound rea- 
 sons ; but if Parliament has no better reason for adjourning 
 for a week the Friday but one before Easter Sunday, than 
 that Parliament never did otherwise since Parliament was, 
 — agents, solicitors, municipal corporations, cabmen. Bridge 
 Street hotel-keepers, the news agents, and the people who 
 have given up theatres and taken to the debates, are en- 
 titled to remonstrate. That is to say, they usually are ; but 
 not this year. This Easter holiday is a needed breathing-time 
 after the dredging work we have had since the 2nd February. 
 Human nature could not have gone on with new committees 
 without a pause. 
 
 In the confusion, the shame, the repentance, no one has 
 been able to make up his mind as to what should be done ; and 
 a pause may permit some good resolutions. Great blame is 
 thrown on Sir J. Shelley for his indecision on Tuesday about 
 the new writs — proposing and then withdravving a preclusory 
 amendment. But why censure that good-natured, not large- 
 minded, and anxious-to-be-busy baronet, who was only puzzled, 
 as the House was puzzled, between conscience and expediency 
 — who was in doubt, because he could not feel his way in a 
 House in doubt ? It is absurd to appoint a commission here, 
 and to renew the writ there, — to lament bribery, and yet not 
 punish the corrupt — to declaim against Brown and Coppock, 
 and yet leave Brown and Coppock to make their fortunes : and 
 the House of Commons is behaving very foolishly, and reck- 
 lessly, and irregularly. But whose business is it to be wise 
 and bold in such a crisis? J^o one's, if not Lord John's; and 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 8. 79 
 
 Lord John is mild and unconcerned ; and begs to tell Lord A. 
 Vane (that the son of the owner of the "treasure" should 
 affect such inquiring virtue!) that he contemplates, in regard 
 to proved cases of bribery, why — ah, — I believe, — ah, — nothing. 
 Lord Aberdeen, in the Lords, says, the day before, that he has 
 reason to believe his noble friend is thinking over the matter; 
 and that — ah, — no doubt, as — ah, — the noble lord opposite ob- 
 serves, it is, — ah, — undoubtedly shocking. Were Mr. Roebuck 
 strong and well, we should have some pluck and vigour : the 
 little man would force that House, as he did in the Committee 
 cases of the election of '41, into honest and straightforward 
 dealing, at whatever risks. But he is ill — away ; and there is 
 no other man who has such integrity, and such ill-temper — the 
 great qualities pre-eminently required. We could, therefore, 
 only expect — whatever we may anticipate from a Cabinet 
 Council in the short recess — the maundering and variant 
 doings of the week — and, worse still, the dangerous speeches in 
 which Radicals have admitted much too much. We heard 
 from Mr. Cobden and Mr. Duncombe, on Tuesday, two astonish- 
 ingly novel arguments, for "people's party" men, for the 
 Ballot and Equal Electoral Districts. Adopt the Ballot, says 
 one Radical, and then there will be no bribery — the purchaser 
 would not be safe of his bargain. Says Mr. Duncombe, who 
 deals with his own constitution as he would with the British 
 — he is perpetually reforming it — so that now at the alleged 
 age of 100, he looks as lively as he did when he first spited the 
 aristocracy by turning people's evidence against them — says 
 the member for Finsbury — Let us have constituencies in which 
 there shall not be less than 20,000 voters, and then who'll be 
 able to afford corruption 1 What faith in an enlightened 
 nation does this show! According to the people's advocates, 
 the people are so inherently corrupt that they cannot be 
 trusted ; and yet Mr. Cobden consents to, ^d Mr. Duncombe 
 insists on, a cry for an extension of the suffrage. Argument: 
 the few to whom w^e give the suffrage are such scamps that we 
 must multiply them: we cannot prevent the people being 
 bribable — let us make the people too dear. Is not that naive 
 in a Liberal ? This is the way to encourage and sustain Lord 
 John in next year's problematical Reform Bill — as if Mr. 
 Disraeli, who retains some individuality, though deposed from 
 formal leadership in favour of Pakington, were not warily 
 watching all these hysterical " asides," hardly intended for the 
 public, and arranging the capital he will make of them in 
 proper time ; when, a policy having been discovered, there will 
 be demand for a man, to be again elected to tinkle the bells on 
 the road to the Treasury benches. There is, of course, one 
 aspect in which the committee revelations are to be regarded 
 as favourable to argumentation for more voters in Great 
 
80 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 8. 
 
 Britain; but, very singularly, the Radicals, as a party, are 
 completely negligent of the materials far too abundantly pre- 
 sented. Those who are talking at all about the committees 
 are canting in the wrong key: the mass of Liberals are not 
 talking of them at all. 
 
 If we want to ascertain how the dependence on the side of 
 Lord Aberdeen, and dread (of Lord Aberdeen) on the side of 
 Lord John Russell, is likely ta operate on the Reform Bill, 
 when it does come, and on the general character of this year's 
 indiscriminate legislation, we can refer to last night's work in 
 the House of Commons on the Canada clergy reserves. Lord 
 John, who had got and taken much credit for his boldness in 
 this business, and who had not intrepidly obstinate Lord Grey 
 at his elbow to make him ashamed of wavering, seems to have 
 found at the last moment that the Argj^ll and Newcastle 
 section of the Cabinet did not like this complete desertion of 
 the Church of England in Canada, that Lord Derby was strong 
 on this point, and that, in such a matter, it was hardly worth 
 while to expose Government weakness in the Lords ; and in 
 throwing over, in committee last night, the third clause, which 
 excused the people of England from becoming paymasters of 
 Canadian bishops, in the event of those right reverend persons 
 being pauperised by the local legislature, the Government 
 literally turned round on their own bill, took out its sting — 
 the new principle of colonial policy — and confessed a blunder 
 in its introduction. Now, a Gavernuient, however strong, 
 cannot afford such blunders; the debate, consequently, did 
 great harm to the Cabinet ; and if Mr. Disraeli had not with- 
 drawn his delaying motion to report progress, for which all 
 the Conservatives, and all the Dissenters, and most of the 
 Radicals would have voted, the Cabinet would have been 
 placed in a minority. Mr. Disraeli, not sure of a concrete 
 party to back him, may have been afraid of being called 
 factious, or that the Government would resign, and leave him 
 to be " sent for," ignominiously to be not at home to the 
 royal messenger ; — what his object was in backing out of a 
 chance of mischief, it is not easy to say ; — but, clearly. Govern- 
 ment had a narrow escape. Two facts remain: — there is a 
 very strong Church party in the Ministry; and Lord John 
 gives way to it. Perhaps one satisfactory personal inference 
 from this toilsome debate is — that Mr. Edward Miall may still 
 succeed in the House of Commons. The Dissenters, it is 
 known, had made during the week great efforts to arouse 
 vexation against Lord John's compromising cunning ; and Mr. 
 Miall was therefore last night in his proper position — repre- 
 sentative of the Dissenters, — what may be called without 
 offence, the professional Dissenters ; and attacking, not an abs- 
 tract point (as in his failure on the Maynooth motion), but a tan- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 4. '49 
 
 No. 4.* 
 
 A HAPPY new year is no longer a polite, fatuous wish. It is a 
 great fact. For has not Lord Aberdeen discovered that, in 
 politics, there are only distinctions without differences ; that 
 "the period has arrived" when men of "all parties," whose 
 differences " circumstances and recent legislation had effaced," 
 could join together in carrying on the "public service ; " that, 
 in short, we are a happy family — that the nation is a single 
 vast party — that we have knocked both Whigs and Tories on 
 the head — and that, under a " combination Ministry," repre- 
 senting all the " distinctions without differences," we may pro- 
 gress in comfort, innocent, for ever, of a single division 1 Peace 
 in the House of Commons, and good-will among Members, are 
 the conditions under which we open 1853. We agree that we 
 agree — acting on a sudden thought, and swearing eternal 
 friendship : and Ave initiate a new Paxton architecture — a 
 senate sans the lobbies. Happy people — happy year — which 
 finds a "teller" as remote as a megatherium. 
 
 Very clearly, public opinion is in favour of the arrangements 
 effected by the Court, through the agency of Lord Aberdeen ; 
 and the new Government will get a very fair trial. All the 
 indications show that the " coalition" is based on the broad 
 principle of gentle Conservative progress, with thorough ad- 
 ministrative departmental efficiency, carrying on the Queen's 
 Government, and not stopping the people : — which is just the 
 solitary political principle of this prosperous and apathetic — 
 otherwise philosophical — era. 
 
 Great faith may be placed in the necessities of the new 
 Government : for the necessities will compel good measures. 
 In the first place, if all these men — the first of their day, and 
 who have collective and individual reputation to lose — cannot 
 hit on a good Budget, then a good Budget is impossible — 
 financial revision — equitable principles — impossibilities. Their 
 foreign policy cannot but be consistent, and dignified, even 
 though the results upon the liberation of enslaved Europe 
 may remain nil. There is no Louis Philippe for Lord Aber- 
 deen to give way to ; and there is a Palmerston to prevent 
 Lord John or Lord Clarendon (for it seems understood that 
 Lord John only starts in the Foreign Office to save appear- 
 ances) giving way to Austria ; while Lord John himself is 
 
 * Jan. 1, 1853. 
 
50 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 4. 
 
 known to suspect Louis Napoleon. And a political junction 
 with the United States is more than feasible, in a Cabinet 
 of which Lord Granville (who is, perhaps, the most advanced 
 of all the men of the Ministry) is a member. Then the diffi- 
 culty of Ireland disappears, when Irish Liberals take office, and, 
 in so doing, guarantee a decent Irish policy. As to the 
 Reform Bill, we need not expect it carried for two or three 
 years, or that it will be worth very much when it is carried ; 
 for the people are not demanding real reform, and their wishes 
 won't be anticipated. But a beginning, after twenty years' 
 rest in reform, will be a great deal ; and if what dehris of de- 
 mocracy is left complains of insufficiency, the retort is — " You 
 are getting as much as you asked for ; if you want a revolu- 
 tion, make it." Then there will be other beginnings — in 
 national education (to which some people attach great im- 
 portance, and it is well to satisfy everybody) — in administrative 
 reform — that is, the economy which is consistent with efficiency. 
 There are many Radical plans which will be left untouched — 
 but what would you have? The country which endured Lord 
 Derby and Lord Malmesbury must have been the most reac- 
 tionary country in Europe ; and it will be a triumph to obtain 
 acquiescence in one-half what Lord Aberdeen, Lord John 
 Russell, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Cardwell, have promised 
 to do — what the names of Keogh, Villiers, Osborne, and Moles- 
 worth, indirectly pledge the Ministry to attempt. The dis- 
 tinctions and the differences remain, although Prince Albert and 
 Lord Aberdeen do not think so ; but up to a certain point — 
 the point at which an apathetic nation will acquiesce in ob- 
 viously-required improvements — easy friendship between ante- 
 cedent opponents is quite manageable ; and when Lord Derby's 
 310 (when men tell hbs they are circumstantial : mark the 300 
 — and 10) begin to notice that the country has got exactly a 
 representative government — reflectino^ average Conservatism 
 and average Liberalism — they will fall off", and, for the sake of 
 their seats, take rank in the new universal party, which includes 
 everybody and everything. Let the country be assured that it 
 has many more " bowing" acquaintances than Mr. Christopher. 
 There is this palpable peculiarity about the new Cabinet — 
 that it will be republican — without a leader. In Peel's Cabinet 
 there was only one man, Peel ; he did not consult them ; he 
 communicated to them. In Lord John Russell's Cabinet, the 
 family gave way to the man who had brought the " circle" 
 together. In Lord Derby's Cabinet no one could possibly ven- 
 ture to have an opinion but Derby and Disraeli — and Disraeli 
 could well affect to follow Derby, since he had previously 
 arranged that the conceited Earl should talk unconscious Dis- 
 raeli-isms. But Lord Aberdeen is only the nominal Premier, 
 and has power, simply because he is the confidant of the Court. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 4. 51 
 
 He is honest — patriotic — anxious that his premiership should 
 be distinguished by national satisfaction ; and it is not possible 
 that, at sixty-eight, his motives in taking power could be other 
 than the purest and noblest. And his influence will be pro- 
 portionate to the confidence that he is above and apart from 
 the ambitions and schemes of the moment — that he is aiming 
 at national good. But, perforce, he will have to think through 
 others, and to decide on a balance of arguments presented to 
 him by his various colleagues. Lord Aberdeen, at this moment, 
 is precisely what might be expected of a peer who early entered 
 on the magnificent education which Parliament provides — who 
 was forced into ambition, and ofiSces, and trust, and who, 
 driven to hard work, was compelled to eschew delights and 
 indolence, and so urged and kept in the regular habits which 
 preserve mental and physical health. He never had cleverness 
 — and he never had a seat in the House of Commons, which 
 might have provoked the senatorial knack which so often passes 
 for cleverness, and is, in truth, a very good substitute. But he 
 was from the first, as his positions proved, a soundly judging, 
 accurate, tactful, reliable man ; and the dispassionate, cool 
 head, always learning, always observing, is, after forty years of 
 work and watching, full of wisdom — which is, remembrance of 
 the results of observation. Of all men known to the public, he 
 is especially fitted for the task assigned by the Queen, of being 
 the centre of a combination of parties : for with " all the ta- 
 lents" in one Cabinet, amenity is preferable to genius in the 
 chief. Mediocrity with sixty-eight years is sublimity, and 
 suggests no rivalry to rising young fellows of fifty and sixty, 
 like Graham, Palmerston, and Russell. A Premier of sixty- 
 eight speaks with a force that Lord Derby, with the fatal 
 facility of vigorous fluency, could never attain ; and those who 
 heard the speeches of these two men recently, in the House 
 of Lords, would only contrast favourably the heavy, low-voiced, 
 slow, conversational, or rather soliloquy-like style and manner 
 of austere, gray-headed, large-chested, but clearly feeble Lord 
 Aberdeen, with the "marry-come-up" " petulance" and petti- 
 ness which characterise the mind and nature of Lord Derby, 
 and which not all the rotund, flowing, gentlemanly style of his 
 soulless balderdash can hide even from those who believed that 
 the man who had an earldom, being fourteenth earl, with fifty 
 thousand a year, and who could yet prate as well as George 
 Thompson — though not quite so well as Henry Vincent — must 
 necessarily be an orator, a man of genius, and a statesman. 
 Lord Aberdeen never could speak ; and, doubtless, after his ex- 
 perience in the Peers, does not see the appropriateness of a 
 debating style, such as Lord Derby's or the Duke of Newcastle's, 
 in an assembly which is essentially judicial and deliberative. 
 Thus he made his momentous announcement on Monday, just 
 
 E 2 
 
52 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 4. 
 
 in the way in which he would talk across a council table — and 
 disconnected, loose, and ungainly as it all sounded, it reads 
 dignified and becoming enough in print. 
 
 Then, which of the Peelites is to lead ? Mr. Gladstone 
 should, on the score of immense mental power, and a capa- 
 city for exposition and debate, which has been improving 
 yearly (one sure sign of genius), and which, when he gets 
 rid of some lingering defects, such as a too rotund, up-and- 
 downish management of the voice, will constitute him the first 
 House of Commons speaker — which is not being an orator 
 — of his time, Disraeli not excepted. Excepting Mr. Glad- 
 stone, there can hardly be said to be a first-rate intellect among 
 the Peelites in office. Sir James Graham was always a lieu- 
 tenant : he never had originality of view or policy ; and all the 
 reputation he has ever obtained has resulted from his power of 
 arranging details — as an administrator. His life presents a 
 mass of silly sayings and silly doings — a weary collection of 
 contradictions ; and a man without high character — the conse- 
 quence of independent, comprehensive views — can never lead 
 either a Ciibinet or a House of Commons. He is no doubt a 
 debater of some importance ; because, having got his cue from 
 some one, he masters the subjects he talks of ; and since Sir 
 Robert Peel's death, he has been regarded as succeeding to Sir 
 Robert's position in the House ; and, with the prestige of sup- 
 posed lead among the Peelites, his suave manner, and correct, 
 courteous enunciation of truths about principles and parties, 
 have been generally mistaken (the House was always so very 
 still and attentive) for power and force. Then who is there 
 after Sir James ? Mr. Sidney Herbert has £50,000 a year, and 
 will be an earl — great merits ; and he is possessed of average 
 capacity, some ambition, great honour, a pleasant voice, and a 
 good manner — great qualities ; quite fitting him for Parlia- 
 ment, and justifying his seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Cardwell is 
 only a half-educated statesman yet : and he has not that per- 
 sonal position — that pre-eminence resulting from the influence 
 over many private friendships — and the tact, that is better 
 than talent, which would render him now as useful as he will in 
 a few more years be to Lord Aberdeen, in a Cabinet. If Lord 
 Aberdeen is to keep the lead in his own party (for even in a 
 republican Cabinet, as in republican States, the first man is thfe 
 best man), Lord Aberdeen must trust entirely to Mr. Glad- 
 stone, who, in turn, must rely altogether for the position he is 
 to take upon the measures pertaining to his department which 
 he may bring forward. The present House of Commons will 
 never forget his brilliant and crushing reply to Disraeli, if 
 for no 93sthetic reason, because that one speech upset a Minis- 
 try ; but a House of Commons — they are all the same by a 
 collective instinct — give votes and "hear-hears" only to those 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 4. 53 
 
 who are constantly at work — constantly sustaining great repu- 
 tations ; and if Mr. Gladstone can produce a Budget which will 
 satisfy — first, the Cabinet; next, the House; and, next, the 
 country — he will have the Government of this extremely- 
 enlightened and free country at his disposal for the next ten 
 years, at any rate. The Duke of Newcastle, of whom people 
 who judge by what they hear, and not by what they see and 
 study of men, are predicting so much, has only one great 
 quality — contempt for the Earl of Derby. That in itself is a 
 sign of a discerning mind, — but the catalogue of merits ends 
 there ; and that would be no merit but that the contemner is 
 a duke. His Grace is otherwise anti-ducal in joviality, and 
 even jocularity of manners — in the absence of pretence — 
 in faith in popular justice and anxiety for popular ap- 
 plause : tendencies which may have something to do with the 
 coming history of the Aberdeen Government. But he is a 
 mediocre man in abilities — fluent, but not gracefully so — sadly 
 tedious, and always common-place. 
 
 But it is a question, whether in the Cabinet Lord Palmerston 
 won't be what he recently has been in the House — "master of 
 the situation," arbiter between Whigs and Peelites and Radi- 
 cals, and maker of motions to which everybody will have to 
 consent and with which everybody will be discontented. Sir 
 Charles Wood will be nobody among the Whigs — he is nobody 
 anywhere : for he is an uncertain, and an unequal man — flow- 
 ing over with all sorts of oflicial knowledge, but twice out of 
 three times applying it all wrong, and precipitating (as vide 
 his Budgets) the most inextricable confusion. Lord Clarendon 
 (and whether he is in or out of the Cabinet seems at present a 
 matter nobody is positive about, though everybody agrees he 
 soon is to be, if he is not already, in) has not the character (he 
 made the greatest mess of it of any lord-lieutenant on record) 
 to lead the Cabinet, and has not the readiness to be useful as a 
 debater, which does not matter, as the Lords don't need debaters, 
 and, if they did, have plenty in the Government already : and as 
 Foreign Secretary, to which post he is contingently appointed, 
 he can only be a diplomatist, working away at tricks, leading 
 to nothing, or into difliculty — seldom making his appearance 
 in speeches, and, I predict, in his new career, adding nothing 
 to his reputation — though, checked by the Prince and the rest 
 of the Cabinet, he can never do much harm to his country. 
 The hopes of Whiggery rest with Lord John and Lord Gran- 
 ville — Lord John to sustain the position of the family in the 
 Commons, and Lord Granville in the Lords. Lord John will, 
 doubtless, have the arrangement of the Reform Bill; Lord 
 Lansdowne, with Granville, of the Education Bill ; and pro- 
 bably, in order to be left to themselves in these matters, the 
 Whigs will l|t the Peelites, per Mr. Gladstone — general prin- 
 
54 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 4. 
 
 ciples being agreed on — do what they like as to the details of 
 the Budget ; and the management and increase of the army 
 and navy, per Sidney Herbert and Graham. But there is a 
 firm, positive, obstinate, dogmatic person in the Cabinet who is 
 a party in himself — the Radicals — viz. Sir William Moles- 
 worth. He is there to watch for the people that popularity is 
 properly looked after — to justify his accepting office by insist- 
 ing upon very Liberal measures; — which he will afterwards 
 privately tell his constituents that, between themselves, he was 
 entirely the means of securing. There is great division of 
 opinion among Radicals as to the propriety of the course taken 
 by Molesworth and Osborne in joining the "coalition" — and 
 the doubts particularly attach to Mr. Osborne, since, with but 
 a very vague notion of what the intentions of the Government 
 were, he took office, and joined them without the means of 
 influencing or controlling them, since he did not get a seat in 
 the Cabinet. But — without supposing that these gentlemen 
 are playing the part of the fox against the bear — it must be 
 admitted, on a fair consideration, that they did quite right : 
 just as, for the same reasons, in reference to Ireland, Mr. 
 Keogh, Mr. Sadlier, and Mr. Monsell have accepted office. 
 The presence of Sir W. Molesworth — all the more valuable a 
 man now for his primness, his pedantry, and his dogmatism — 
 is a guarantee that the Cabinet will be Liberal : and as long as 
 Mr. Osborne holds his office, the Radicals may be sure that no 
 Toryism is being intended. The question which they had to 
 consider, when office was offered to them, was — would they 
 more advance the cause of progress by refusing: and to that 
 query there could be but one answer. It is useful to have 
 politicians in advance of the age — in newspapers, in books, 
 and on out-of-door platforms : but the truth is, such politicians 
 have no business in the House of Commons. The very ex- 
 tremist Liberalism which there could be a chance of the voting 
 power of this country accepting will, it is most likely, be pro- 
 posed by the present Government : and unless it be a correct 
 theory that, because a man holds certain extreme or Radical 
 opinions, he is never to enjoy the glories of public life — official 
 position, power, and patronage, — and is never to join the men 
 who will only consent to adopt those opinions modified, and 
 who could never effect the accomplishment of the modification 
 without the aid of Radicals, — then Sir Wm. Molesworth and 
 Mr. B. Osborne have done quite right. A man in the House of 
 Commons, whether reformed or not reformed, should do the 
 most he can with the materials at his disposal: and, while 
 awaiting for the constitutional changes which he may think 
 will bring his own extreme opinions into fashion, should accept 
 instalments, and should use his influence with the Ministries 
 and the House to hasten those instalments by backing the 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 4. 55 
 
 Governments which will give them against the Governments 
 which will not give them, and which thus would delay the 
 desired changes. This does not mean to say that a man who 
 had been agitating for universal suflrage, or repeal of the 
 Union, should seek a seat in the House of Commons, and the 
 moment he gets there join the least Tory Government. It 
 means that the men who agitate for results for which Parlia- 
 ment is not prepared should stay out of the House of Com- 
 mons if they mean to make the House only a platform for pro- 
 tests, and do not mean to manage the House by party tactics ; 
 and that when gentlemen of extreme opinions join in a 
 Government other men of less extreme opinions, but tending 
 in the same direction, they should enter upon office with a 
 declaration that they surrender no principle — that they reserve 
 all their individuality ; but that, for a time, in the hope of 
 advancing what they eventually mean, they sink their single 
 in a collective opinion. This was the theory Sir Geo. Ward 
 acted upon when, representing Sheffield, he took office under 
 the Whigs; and this was what Mr. Roebuck said (and Mr. 
 Roebuck is punished for a life of ill-nature in being left out 
 now) when he succeeded Ward in that most jealous of all 
 Radical constituencies. Ward was wrong in taking office 
 under the Whigs, for he must have known that the Whigs are 
 the mosf aristocratic, selfish, exclusive, of all parties — Liberals 
 only in their principles — Tories in details ; and Mr. Roebuck 
 was only conditionally right in his frank announcement. But 
 there are special sureties in the case of this Government which 
 remove all objections to the course pursued by the two Radical 
 members — one, Molesworth, being chosen to talk colonial 
 popularity ; and the other, Osborne, being adopted for the 
 sake of silencing him; — and, for the sake of the Radical 
 cause, and that honest, able men may not for ever be deterred 
 from serving the cause of the people, it is to be hoped that 
 Southwark and Middlesex will send back and encourage their 
 favourites to their careers of public usefulness in Parliament. 
 
56 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 5. 
 
 No. 5.-^ 
 
 This has been a week devoted by the House of CommoRS to 
 ■unconscious exposures of its own thorough want of earnestness 
 in " foreign policy." Lord Palmerston, on Thursday, dressed in 
 deep mourning (for Lord Melbourne) —black to the studs and 
 to the kids, and yet talking in the most intensely and success- 
 fully jocular vein, was an exemplar of the system — elaborate 
 affectation of liberal and Protestant grief — real poco-curante- 
 ism. 
 
 Mr. Cobden, who can see every inconsistency but his own, 
 last night pointed out, in a few words, the utter hollowness of 
 all the elaborate affectations, on the part of the responsible 
 statesmen, of faith in the pacific notions of the French Emperor, 
 by saying, addressing himself personally to Lord John Ptussell 
 — How is it that you, who find so much fault with the press 
 for expressing distrust, nevertheless act distrust — declare your 
 trust, and yet keep* your powder dry 1 The comment on the 
 whole debate raised by Mr. Disraeli was the next order of the 
 day — a proposal, which no one dreamed of opposing, for in- 
 creasiug the Navy Estimates by nearly half a million. In 
 Downing Street, excellent "relations" with the Tuileries — in 
 the House of Commons, responsible abuse of the newspapers 
 for being British ; but still, " activity" in the dockyards. 
 
 What Mr. Disraeli meant by his forcing on the question 
 about France is clear enough. As the colleague of the Lord 
 Malmesbury who praised the Napoleonian system, he had*no 
 right to abuse a Whig statesman for condemning that system — 
 the one being just as great an interference as the other with 
 the internal affairs of France. And Mr. Disraeli's anxiety 
 about peace is the anxiety, as he says, of "Sidonia's" philo- 
 sophy, of a man who by race and creed is without a country, 
 and who looks on politics without prejudices, patriotic or other- 
 wise. But as leader of Opposition — heading a party without a 
 plan or a policy, he finds it necessary not to be silent, and seeing 
 nothing objectionable in the measures, he must attack the 
 men of the Government — assaulting them in detail in conse- 
 quence. Thus his speech last night was a personal speech : 
 and all its hints told, because evidently he had nothing tangible 
 
 * Parliament reassembled, after the Christmas holidays, on Feb. 10th, 
 but no important business was transacted. The present sketch appeared 
 in print on Saturday, Feb. 19. 
 
PARLIAMENTAEY RETROSPECT, NO. 5. o7 
 
 to deal with but the follies and indiscretions of individual 
 members of the Cabinet. He made them look ridiculous ; a 
 small step for an Opposition, but the only one they can take 
 when, at the same time, they have nothing to oppose — and, 
 what is even more perplexing, nothing to propose. Mr. 
 Disraeli, always an actor, acted well on this occasion, because 
 he was what tenors term in great voice — in high condition; 
 and he succeeded in his object, not merely in felling Sir Charles 
 Wood, and flaying Sir James Graham* (for we may rely on it 
 Sir James did speak the words Disraeli quoted), but in amus- 
 ing the crowded and new House, which has found Parliament 
 dull^ and wpvnted enlivening. 
 
 In the excess of dignity assumed by Lord John, in reply — 
 and it must have been galling to the indignant " leader," that 
 no sooner did he get on his legs than the crowd which had 
 hung on Disraeli dispersed towards dinner — you can see how 
 the playful references to the "great man" who was to be 
 crushed by the Coalition Cabinet into a "small room" had hit 
 the weak side of one who is nervously afraid that people 
 think he has "gone down," in taking a subordinate place, after 
 having enjoyed the first ; and in the bitter but bungling wit of 
 the enraged Graham, who, in his fierceness, ventured on reviving 
 the joke of the Wellington funeral oration, it was easy to detect 
 the mortification which had been inflicted upon one who chiefly 
 presents himself to the nation as the, par excellence, "discreet" 
 statesman. 
 
 Then take Mr. Disraeli's " portrait " of Lord Aberdeen, as 
 painted by Lord John Russell — and it is an easy calculation 
 that Lord Aberdeen and Russell cannot be happy together for 
 the next week. Take the sketch of Sir William Moles worth — - 
 the Radical seized, taken to court, and converted into a Cabinet 
 Minister — and you may estimate how far the apprehensions of 
 the philosophical baronet that he is beginning to be doubted 
 will induce him to cause confusion among his colleagues. 
 
 All these jeers and sneers and sarcasms told all the more 
 from the debonair airs Mr. Disraeli assumed of leadership of 
 the strongest party — of absolute superiority over the men 
 whom he was holding up to ridicule. As defender of Louis 
 Napoleon, who had not been ashamed to say he was a parvenu, 
 Mr. Disraeli ventured on a humble boast, that he was a " gentle- 
 man of the press" — " it is my only escutcheon" — and obviously 
 the Cabinet which consisted of all the experiences and all the 
 discretions did not relish lampooning from a man who talked, 
 not like a statesman, but like a lively novelist. Heavy, indeed 
 ■ — heavier for the anger they could not conceal — were the 
 
 * Sir Charles Wood and Sir James Graham had attacked Louis Napo- 
 leon in their hustings speeches, at the general election. 
 
58 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 5. 
 
 replies. The utmost that Lord John and Sir James could say was, 
 that Mr. Disraeli was not in earnest ahout peace (which he 
 had not pretended to be), and that he talked from his common- 
 place-book. Better do that, he might have retorted, than talk 
 commonplaces. The Government came out of the debate 
 damaged by the Wit — the Wit was successful, because he put 
 the Government in a passion. Whether Mr. Disraeli's tone, as 
 leader of responsible Opposition, is what it should be, is very 
 questionable. He probably risks creatinoj doubts of that nature 
 on the assurance that responsibility is distant, inasmuch as the 
 Coalition Government is too strong to suffer, in collective 
 strength, by caricatures of its personalities ; and meanwhile 
 the House cheers him and laughs with him because fair play 
 admits that the men who turned him out are the proper vic- 
 tims of his vindictive jests. Too far he does not go ; for his 
 speech is, after all, carefully framed so as to please in that high 
 quarter whence much of the war-gale blows ; for instance, what 
 will Leopold say to the compliment, that he is the wisest and 
 most accomplished prince in Europe — though the phrase, in 
 delicacy to Prince Albert, should have been wisest monarch ? — 
 and in all the relentless sarcasm he poured on the Treasury 
 benches, there was one man he spared : that Lord Palmerston 
 who was turned out by Lord John for anticipating all the com- 
 mendation which Lord John afterwards gave to Louis Napoleon. 
 To the replies of Lord John and Sir James Graham, Mr. Disraeli 
 is indifferent ; but he avoids rousing the only man whom he 
 respects and fears. Mr. Cobden, in both these particulars, was 
 more clumsy. He sneered at Palmerston, and he taunted the 
 Court — speaking of it as ^' that influence which we must not 
 mention in this House." The kind of advice which Lord John 
 so circuitously recommended to the Tories — an advice they will 
 take on Thursday next on the Jew Bill, when Mr. Walpole 
 leads the Christian resistance — to get rid of Mr. Disraeli — is 
 quite available to the I'eace Party. Setting the country and 
 the Queen by the ears is not exactly the most practical method 
 of obtaining disarmaments by agreement. 
 
 This talk about France, directly as provoked by Mr. Disraeli, 
 indirectly as suggested by the Navy Estimates — always, and 
 this year more than ever, the statistical comment on our " good 
 relations" with foreign powers — was preceded on Thursday by 
 a confused and unsatisfactory discussion of Mr. Kinnaird's 
 resolution asking Her Majesty to protest to the Duke of 
 Tuscany against the continued imprisonment of the Madiai: 
 and it is curious to study the utterly different set of principles 
 upon which these debates proceeded. In the French debate, 
 every one of the speakers spoke upon the assumption that our 
 press was in error to attack Louis Napoleon, on the ground 
 that he was a potentate in possession, and that we, as a nation, 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 5. 59 
 
 had no right whatever to interfere with the internal affairs of 
 another nation. But in the Madiai debate, every one but Mr. 
 Henry Drummond, whose trenchant common-sense never misses 
 the point, took as completely for granted that it was our busi- 
 ness to be n2itioiLal\ J ^' defensor Jidei'' — a Protestant Quixote. 
 Observe the classes who were most active in aid of the ex- 
 courier Francesco Madiai (comparable, at least, to St. Paul, in 
 respect of his antecedents), and you will find that they are 
 exactly those classes who detect the ungentility of criticising 
 Louis Napoleon. They will not, or do not choose to see, that 
 if our press has no right to be propagandist of political 
 liberalism in France, our Exeter Hall is disentitled to be pro- 
 pagandist of religious liberalism in Tuscany, and that our 
 Stafford House is precluded from propagatiug ethnological 
 enlightenment in the United States. This, however, is a blun- 
 der, which more th?tn the classes Mr. Disraeli represented in 
 his deprecations last night, may be said to represent. That 
 haughty Times, which denounces the despotism of libuis 
 Napoleon, is the same arbitrative journal that condemns 
 Mazzini and Kossuth for their attempts to get rid, in Austrian 
 territories, of precisely the political system considered to be so 
 obnoxious in France; and the haughty Times is apparently 
 quite innocent of perception of this interesting inconsistency. 
 Mr. Disraeli would be logical in advising amiability about 
 Louis Napoleon, if he had not been the colleague of the Lord 
 Malmesbury, who laid it down as a rule, in his dispatch to Mr. 
 Scarlett, that the Protestant Ministers of Protestant sovereigns 
 are bound, in duty, to be the champions of Protestants. So 
 that Mr. Disraeli is as inconsistent as the Times. And the 
 Times, and Mr. Disraeli, and the class called British statesmen, 
 generally, are all blundering, in their various propagandas, in 
 their assumptions that we are in a position to teach the 
 nations how to live, — liberally or religiously. iMr. Drummond 
 puts our incompetency in one way — first, that propagandism is 
 inexpedient, and next, that it is silly, unless we follow up 
 protocols by war-steamers. Mrs. Tyler puts it another way — 
 that our House is not in that order which entitles our philan- 
 thropy to go gadding. Mr. Lucas defines "religious tolera- 
 tion" to be the toleration of all religions, and suggests that 
 we have no business to wail over incarcerated ex-couriers, 
 unless we are prepared to weep over ravished nuns of Minsk. 
 All these various views, with their contrasting illustrations, 
 put before us in the course of a single week — events pointing 
 theories — cannot fail to teach us a useful lesson. Our position 
 is that of the enlightened and enthusiastic philanthropist, not 
 many years ago, who took the chair at a meeting in the cause 
 of "labour," and suffered from his chivalrous appearance in 
 public, by being at last caught by the bailiff. Or like that 
 
60 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 5. 
 
 other, as notorious and as enlightened philanthropist, who 
 crossed to America in order to vindicate the Kigger, because an 
 ignorant law of debtor and creditor in England precluded him, 
 for the time, from asserting the liberties of the Briton. The 
 British Parliament, as an institution representing one million 
 of voters out of six millions of adult men, must discover that 
 liberality and toleration should keep company with charity in 
 domestic duluess ; and the British Times, as a propagandist, 
 should hate the Russian and Austrian, as well as the French 
 Emperor. As to that portion of the press in which this is 
 written, its hands are clean, its principles are not geographical, 
 and its notion of religious toleration is not Lord Maimesbury's 
 or Exeter Hall's. 
 
 The debate on Thursday, resultless in resolution, and leaving 
 the Madiai where they were, is not unimportant, as having 
 developed some individuality. In the first place, we may aiford 
 to admire the unequivocal success obtained by Mr. Lucas as a 
 debater. That fact is the best possible tribute to the genuine, 
 manly "toleration" of the House of Commons — the highest 
 illustration of the thorough practical freedom distinguishing 
 the public life of England. Cardinal Wiseman getting elected 
 to the House of Commons, and attempting to secure a hearing, 
 would have not a more difficult game to play than Mr. Lucas 
 has had. Yet, against all the prejudices which met him on 
 the part of the religious members for the violence of his advo- 
 cacy of his creed, and on the part of the men of business for 
 the political wrong-headeduess of his general policy — against 
 a general belief on all sides that he was a fanatic and a fool, 
 who would merely talk fanaticism and folly, and who must 
 consequently be summarily put down — as a Plumptre, and as a 
 stupid Plumptre — this very Catholic, and more Irish than an 
 Irish gentleman, gained on Thursday night a complete orato- 
 rical success, testified not merely by the hearty, chuckling 
 cheers of the delighted "Brigade'' around him, but by the 
 encouraging silence, the sign of close attention, of the House 
 generally — a thin House certainly, but large enough to be 
 representative of a general tone. In the success of Mr. Lucas, 
 let the new M.P.'s see that the House of Commons never takes 
 an out-of-door estimate of a man — always judges and decides 
 for itself, according to its own peculiar way of judging ; and, 
 whatever its prejudices against particular sets of exceptional 
 opinions, will give fair play and high place to all men, just in 
 reference to their capacity to gratify and instruct it, condi- 
 tional on the instruction being apropos and promotive of 
 business. Mr. Lucas has spoken twice since his election ; once 
 on tenant-right, and the second time on Thursday on this 
 Madiai question ; and the result is, that he is safe of a hearing 
 and of respectful treatment, — of a House of Commons position. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT^ NO. 5. 61 
 
 in fact, for the rest of his sitting life — if he continues the same 
 clever, tactful man he at present proves himself to be. In the 
 first place, his success is attributable to his showing the most 
 complete mastery of subject ; in the second place, to his defe- 
 rential demeanour (the House vjill have Ko-too from new 
 men), — to the courteous suppression of any ofiensive references 
 to opposing persons or parties. He endeavoured, while insist- 
 ing on his argument, to please; and in the House, as in 
 ordinary drawing-rooms, the evidence of an efibrt to please in 
 itself is accepted as an accomplishment. So much comment 
 is due to this personal success: it is a lesson to every man 
 acting, or meaning to act, English history; it is honourable to 
 the House of Commons. But there was a public utility, 
 beyond the manner, in what Mr. Lucas said. To defend the 
 conduct of the persecutors of the Madiai was not possible for 
 him, except on ecclesiastical grounds, which the House would 
 have yelled down ; and the utmost praise that can be accorded 
 to the technical objection to the House of Commons constitut- 
 ing itself a court of appeal from the Tuscan Court, which had 
 sentenced the Madiai in conformity with Tuscan law, is, that 
 Mr. Lucas was ingeniously uncandid, which is periphrasis for 
 Jesuitical. But the rest of his speech, in dealing with the 
 general question raised, told admirably at the time ; the more 
 from the quiet but earnest voice and gentle manner — (quiet 
 voices and gentle manners in your big-headed, deep-chested 
 men are irresistible in well-educated assemblies!) — and answered 
 the speaker's purpose, in turning the line of the debate, in 
 taking off the onus of offence from Catholicity, and transfer- 
 ring it to Protestant shoulders ; in short, in arresting denun- 
 ciation of Papal intolerance, puzzling all the bigots like Sir 
 Robert Inglis — the Lucas of that side^ — and forcing the two crack 
 Cabinet Ministers, Lord John and Lord Palmerston, to devote 
 their speeches to vindicating themselves from Mr. Lucas's keen 
 syllogism. Granted that Mr. Lucas did not meet the real 
 question — that he did not prove England to be without sym- 
 pathy for Roman Catholic martyrs ; but what a triumph in a 
 debate to have made himself the legitimate hero of it ! Lord 
 John, smiling softly at Mr. Lucas's oratory — and it is creditable 
 to Lord John that he never misses a chance of encouraging 
 rising new men, and that on this occasion he called the Tablefs 
 leader "very able" — was evidently as perplexed as Wiirmser, 
 when young Napoleon left off defence and attacked; "the 
 fellow" was a fool, but then the audacity was a hit — the 
 Wiirmser had at once to change his tactics, and play just the 
 opposite game he had arranged for himself. In point of fact, 
 Lord John, with all his vague declarations of indiscriminate 
 liberalism, was vexed, showed his vexation in a curt, dry 
 manner, and made a speech by no means such as the House 
 
62 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 5. 
 
 had expected, and such as would suit the occasion, even sup- 
 posing Mr. Lucas had not carried war into the Exeter Hall 
 camp. Was it not preposterous to have Lord John vindicating 
 Whig foreign policy while Lord Palmerston was in the House, 
 in office, sitting exactly behind the Speaker? It was as if 
 Charles Kean were to offer the part of Macduff to Macready. 
 You could not help, while you listened, feeling the incongruity 
 of the arrangement ; and very likely Lord Palmerston felt it 
 most keenly of all, though Lord John went out of his way to 
 compliment ''my noble friend" (whom he had nevertheless 
 turned out) upon his foreign policy — in what ? In speaking in 
 favour of the Catholic Relief Bill! But Lord Palmerston 
 would not be bottle-holder to Lord John ; he would have his 
 say, and did; and the House (then full again) roared with 
 laughter and delight, and voted that Lucas was a clever 
 fellow, but that Palmerston was the cleverer, and that the 
 Tablet had been demolished — erased. Lord Palmerston is so 
 popular with Members, and has such a knack of showing 
 up individualities ; and his clever, telling speeches, which only 
 answer and never propose, are always received with acclama- 
 tion, even by the men who know the thorough sham of Palmer- 
 stonian intervening liberalism. But on Thursday he was only 
 answering Mr. Lucas ; and assuredly it ivas as ludicrous as the 
 Viscount proved it ; to represent Lord Palmerston as caring one 
 curse about Protestantism as opposed to Catholicism. ''The 
 idea ! " was the tone of the reply ; and the gay, lively, easy 
 and free, ever juvenile Whig, got precisely the laugh he had 
 bid for from that intensely proper and Protestant House. Mr. 
 Lucas chose the wrong Whig in holding up Palmerston as the 
 religious zealot ! As his Lordship so humorously looked — but 
 so periphrastically observed — the idea ! 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 6. 63 
 
 No. 6.* 
 
 A COALITION Government, with an Opposition consisting of one 
 man only, presents this advantage to the public, that it gets 
 through business. Last night there was a wonderful amount 
 of work got through — the army estimates, for instance, tra- 
 velled through in an unprecedented couple of hours ; and 
 though all this usefulness is unexciting and leaves the morn- 
 ing papers less acceptable than usual, a practical public will 
 doubtless be gratified. It is from a consciousness that the 
 country is gratified, albeit not amused, that Mr. Cayley, oddly 
 profiering the project from the Tory side, considers he is en- 
 titled to propose, on the understanding that Lord John Russell 
 is to do nothing, that that noble commoner shall be well paid 
 for his trouHe. Some drolls suggest that the great question of 
 the day is the precise question which nobody dares to put, viz. 
 what it all means, this Foreign-Office resignation of Lord John 
 Russell, and accession of Lord Clarendon? The Government 
 must feel oddly confident of its strength while making such 
 changes, and not taking the trouble to tell Parliament any- 
 thing about them. Lord John, perhaps, indulges in some 
 anticipation of a premiership ; but Lord Aberdeen, basking in 
 Ministerial sunshine and fair weather, is likely to prefer Bel- 
 gravia to Nice — as long as he can. 
 
 But the question of the week has been that question which 
 Mr. Napier put so pertinently in the feeble debate on the 
 Jewish Disabilities. " Is Christianity to be an open question V 
 That is putting the matter in a strong way. Mr. Napier 
 thought that the interrogatory was an overwhelming sarcasm 
 which the latitudinarians who dine with Lionel Rothschild 
 would find it impossible to stand up against. Yet it is exactly 
 the right question to face in a week devoted, with slight 
 variation, to the consideration whether Roman Catholics and 
 Hebrews are to be incapacitated by their creeds from becoming 
 good citizens. Not that there is any doubt in the enlightened 
 House of Commons, which is by no means a rigidly religious 
 assembly, that confession and circumcision are consistent 
 with the avoidance of transportation or the tread-mill; but 
 that it is not yet the fashion to fling away the afiectations 
 of prejudices still cultivated by the powerful tea-table inte- 
 rest in this country. The English House of Commons does 
 
 * Feb. 26, 1853. 
 
64 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 6. 
 
 admit the Jews (this is the third year in which the affirmative 
 has been voted) to Parliament, and that is very illogical in gen- 
 tlemen who are ex officio (as English M.P.'s) Christians ; and that 
 intelligent Senate, having already endowed Maynooth, would 
 endow the whole Irish Roman Catholic Church if political 
 expediency could be pleaded in favour of such pecuniary 
 extravagance. That House of Commons, made up of men of 
 business and men of the world, would endow a Mormon Col- 
 lege, if there were one, on good political reasons being shown, 
 and would make a Ghebir Prime Minister, if he had got in, 
 and were the fittest man, just as they made Benjamin Disraeli, 
 passionate champion of the pure Sephardim, the practical 
 governor of the British Empire. That House of Commons 
 was elected, and got elected, to look after the nation's and 
 its own interests in this world, and it only begins to think 
 about the next, as of a notice of motion, after the orders of 
 the day are disposed of! When we see the man who is the 
 favourite of the House — leader of ih^par excellence Protestant 
 Church party — a man who owes his literary fame to a dashing 
 Judaic theory, which among other things includes a compli- 
 ment to Caiaphas for the crucifixion — for, asks Mr. Disraeli, we 
 should never have been redeemed had not the Redeemer been 
 put in a position to die for us ! — it is difficult to realize the 
 notion that the British representation is Christian in the 
 theological sense. But what is quite certain — what no one 
 will deny, if he leaves off generalisation, and remembers 
 Jones's, the member for Here's, and Smith's, the member for 
 There's, individual talk about churches and chapels — is this, 
 that the House of Commons is perfectly representative in 
 respect to reflecting impartially all the phases of faith of the 
 British Empire, and that it is intensely anti-sectarian. To 
 such threats as those of Mr. IN'apier on Thursday night — that 
 the vengeance of God would afflict Mr. Speaker and Lord John 
 Russell, if they allowed the money- changing Rothschild to 
 enter the temple of pure Christianity, namely, the House of 
 Commons, which is elected by the most conspicuous national 
 demoralisation and scoundrelism, illustrated (see committee- 
 rooms) in the very lobbies through which Mr. Napier walked to 
 deliver his Jeremiad — hon. gentlemen are profoundly indif- 
 ferent ; and if the lollers on the back benches did arouse them- 
 selves, the clareted Jehoiakims, to think at all about the 
 warning, delivered with that denunciatory snuffle in which 
 Irish Orangemen excel, it was to consider whether, when the 
 head of the Rothschilds does take his seat, Mr. Napier will flee 
 to the salubrious and irresponsible atmosphere of the Chiltern 
 Hundreds. Is not that the test ? Elijah, when nobody 
 attended to him, went into the wilderness: but, though the 
 House of Commons did twice vote for the admission of the 
 
 Tz^^:,^ ^ ^-yn^'^^'t^ ^^^ey^ 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 8. 81 
 
 gible grievance. He availed himself of the advantage of a locus 
 standi, and improved in his manner— at least, in his confidence ; 
 and though exhibiting again that class manner— something of 
 the chapel, something of the school, purr in gesture, sfogato in 
 voice— which oiFends in the House, because so obviously irre- 
 concilable with the climate— he was still clear, terse, and 
 instructive— \iQ did not lecture this time, but suggested, and 
 he was listened to, if coldly and quietly, at least with 'that 
 amount of respect which consists in the absence of fidgety 
 sneering. There were half a dozen friends and admirers—who 
 is not a friend to, and admirer of, Mr. Miall?— above and below 
 his bench, and they ^' Hear, beared" the diffident journalist 
 with a generosity— Mr. Bright's barytone was pre-eminent-^ 
 which made you like the voices. But Mr. Miall has not suc- 
 ceeded yet; and if he was anxious, when he sat down, to know 
 why there had been no general applause, he could not fail to 
 have discerned the reason when Mr. Bright got up (he spared 
 ten minutes from India, such was the dissenting pressure on 
 him in the lobbj) and said precisely what Mr. Miall had said 
 only m less elegant and careful language, added no new idea! 
 and was yet loudly cheered-the whole House being eager 
 and attentive to his every syllable. But why ? Because Mr 
 Bright has a great, massive head and deep chest, while Mr* 
 Miali IS a slender, slight-necked, small, round-headed man- 
 all intellect— but not built for action. In other words, vigour 
 and vehemence— strong manifest volition— are necessary to 
 impress spoken thought on an independent assembly; particu- 
 larly m the case of men who study, as Mr. Bright is beginning 
 to study, the taste and tone of his audience. 
 
82 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, ^0. 9. 
 
 No. 9. 
 
 April 9. 
 When, on Thursday afternoon, on my way to my favourite 
 public amusement, I was walking in the spring sun through 
 the St. James's Park, and heard the small guns about there 
 firing away, in great rejoicing in honour of the happy event in 
 the adjoining Palace,* where, in consequence of all that firing, 
 a new and limited pair of lungs must have been at that mo- 
 ment getting into rapid play, I was mentally summing up, for 
 historical purposes, what in Parliament had been the business 
 of the week so far, and what it was likely to be. I remem- 
 bered, in the first place, that Lord John Russell, volunteer 
 pilot to weather the calm, had on Monday placed before 
 the country an elaborate statement of the gross ignorance, 
 chaotic in assize intelligence, of the masses of the people, and 
 the consequent necessity of a large measure of education. I 
 remembered, in the second place, that the greater portion of 
 the evening of Tuesday had been occupied in discussions upon 
 the admitted corruption of the British electoral body, and the 
 consequent perplexity Parliament will be placed in when, hav- 
 ing declared every seat void, its only alternative is either to 
 issue an "as you were," in the shape of new writs, or, by con- 
 senting to commissions, to prepare for an inevitable measure of 
 universal disfranchisement. I remembered, in the third place, 
 that the Wednesday sitting of the House of Commons had 
 been monopolised by a discussion of the best legislative 
 means of checking the increasing British custom of brutally 
 beating wives. I remembered, in the fourth place, the notice 
 Sir Benjamin Hall had given of his intention to introduce a 
 discussion which, in eff'ect, was to decide whether the last of 
 the Percies, recently First Lord of the Admiralty, had or had 
 not sold "the service" for political purposes, and further, 
 whether his friend and Secretary, also one of the English 
 chivalric classes, had not, in regard to the transaction, wilfully 
 told the inquiring Senate a — falsehood. Lastly, I called to 
 mind that the House of Lords, that same evening, was to agitate 
 the question of Indian Grovernment, and to inquire whether 
 it was true that the capitalist classes really do, as alleged, vend 
 the interests of 150,000,000 of conquered and plundered people 
 for the greater or less interest on the invested principal for the 
 
 * The birth of a prince. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 9. 83 
 
 buying of that humanity. Musing on all this, and coming to 
 the conclusion that, judging of this enlightened country by the 
 " votes" papers, it must be in rather a rotten condition, I arrived 
 at the Stranger's Gallery, and got into the hum of a crowded 
 House, which had just finished private business, had presented 
 its petitions, and was awaiting the what next of that most in- 
 teresting hour for announcements — half-past four. Sad and 
 solemn myself, I expected, perhaps unreasonably, some sack- 
 cloth and ashes expressions for the national sins in that august 
 assembly ; at least it was natural to think that the tone of the 
 week would be in the proceedings. But the hum was a com- 
 placent hum ; there was cheerfulness in individual attitudes ; 
 the general group was decidedly bold, brisk, and lively. Sud- 
 denly there boomed through the hot House the presidential 
 voice of anaxandronic Shaw Lefevre, who announced "Lord 
 John Russell." Loud cries of "hear, hear." Was he going 
 tearfully to deliver a Jeremiad over English degeneracy and 
 the social confusion of our civilisation? I saw the decorous 
 faces of the House ; and the meaning and importance the 
 leader threw into his opening bow and preliminary " Mr. Speaker 
 — Sir," for an instant sustained the notion. But I heard some 
 mumbling, and then some reverential words about " the birth 
 of a Prince ;" and the loud cheers — chuckling, jolly, welcome 
 little stranger cheers — disclosed the mystery. It was an address 
 of congratulation to the Queen that she had got an eightii 
 baby. There the baby was, you were requested to believe, ly- 
 : ing in Lord John's arms, and being presented — by him as a 
 I sort of male Mrs. Lilly, to the host of constitutional papas — 
 I to the " faithful Commons." We are a domestic nation. It 
 j was a pretty scene. One expected next the Sergeant-at-Arms 
 [ to advance with caudle, and Dr. Locock, to be immediately 
 I sent up to the Peers as the Lord Deliver us, to appear at the 
 I bar, as clerks in departments do, with returns. Lord John, 
 j having gently smirked through his business, with all his sym- 
 ' pathies as a loyal subject and a paterfamilias aroused, sank 
 back into his seat ; and another round of cheers hailed Mr. 
 Disraeli, who, dark, and grave, and mysterious, pulled down 
 his vest, put his white hand on the green box — the contrast is 
 so telling — and had the honour of seconding the motion, being 
 sure (here every one remembered how the Court cuts him) 
 that these motions were something more than ceremonies (here 
 every one remembered the Coningsby chapter, in which he ad- 
 jures the throne to emerge from its contemptible position as a 
 Doge's arm-chair), inasmuch as with the continuance of the 
 - reigning House — (here there were great cheers, every honour- 
 able member felt the Queen and the Prince were constantly 
 keeping the consideration in mind) — were indissolubly bound 
 up the fortunes of the land. (Loud cheers.) The motion 
 
 a2 
 
84 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, jXO, 9. 
 
 agreed to with acclamation ; the sweet, interesting episode — 
 that little oasis of the finer feelings of our nature, &c., amid 
 the stern, metallic desert of business — was over. The House, 
 as usual, passed from its poetry to the orders of the day, just 
 as the artillerymen fired the guns, and then took them to the 
 caserne and sponged them, to be ready for the next time. 
 
 Joyous feelings beiug suppressed — loyalty put on one 
 side — the Speaker takes the paper in his hand, puts his glasses- 
 on, and booms ^' Mr. Veraon Smith." Mr. Vernon Smith has- 
 the first business ; and it happens to be in jarring contrast to 
 the duty just got over so pleasantly. Alas ! one thinks, it is 
 good to have many Princes — it is good to be afi'ectionately 
 loyal ; but here would appear something almost commanding 
 a moment's oblivion of royal fruitfulness. But nobody down 
 on the floor there notices the contradiction they are going 
 through. The mover there, the favourite nephew of the great 
 Canon Smith, who could have said some bitter things about 
 such an occasion, is all smooth, smug complacency, and is 
 going through his work as a joke worth gentlemen's attention 
 before they go oif to dinner, and out of the way of that fright- 
 ful Irish debate, which threatens to set in about seven. The 
 business Mr. V. Smith has in hand is a motion for another ad- 
 dress to Her Majesty — ^to congratulate her? — no, to ask her to 
 issue a commission to inquire into the corrupt system believed 
 by a certain Committee, which ought to know, to be extensive 
 and permanent in the borough of Cambridge. (Loud cries of 
 ^" Hear, hear," too.) I was the Chairman of the Committee, 
 said this right honourable gentlemanly man, which inquired 
 into the allegations of the petition complaining of an undue 
 return for Cambridge ; and I can assure the House the disclo- 
 sures were really frightful. (Hear, hear.) Then he went on 
 to describe the system. He was jocular about one Samuel 
 Long, the local Coppock (I had seen Coppock,, as I came in, in 
 the vestibule, surrounded by members, with whom he dines 
 every day, and who think him the nicest fellow in the world) ; 
 and he was humorous, making the House grin, too, about how 
 the bribes to the bribed were given, in Cambridge, by a lady 
 — a lady with a fall — he did not mean in the immoral sense ;. 
 but who was veiled. And, really, he proceeded, this system is 
 not confined to the poorer voters : it is — ah — the regular 
 thing in Cambridge for all classes, high and low. And he was 
 funny about that universality of the thing ; and made curious 
 extracts from the evidence to show that the witnesses admitted 
 it. The House was delighted with the extracts. Then, with 
 a lurch, Mr. Smith became moral. How was all this to be re- 
 medied ? A commission would do much ; it would be an ex- 
 posure ; but it would not do all that was wanted. The House 
 hear, beared. I am greatly afraid, said Smith, putting his 
 
PARLrAMEXTAKY RETROSPECT, XO. 9. 85 
 
 head on one side, talking in a low key, and with the air of a 
 man quietly settling the question — the House being very atten- 
 tive — that the evil is in the degraded tone of the constituency 
 themselves. The House hear, heared : it was pleasant to 
 throw all the blame on the country — a relief from responsibility. 
 Smith had mad-e a hit : he felt that, and went on. I am afraid, 
 he said, corruption is not felt to be a disgrace by a voter ; and 
 I suspect, therefore, we must wait for some j-ears before we can 
 remedy the evil. (Hear, hear.) The House thought, certainly, 
 it could afford to wait. My friend, Tom Buncombe, said Smith, 
 asks us to widen the electoral districts, and to have no consti- 
 tuency under 20,000 voters. That's all nonsense ; suppose you 
 have 20,000 electors, parties may be so balanced, 100 or 200 
 will turn the scale ; and where there are voters who turn the 
 scale, of- course you must bribe 'em. (Hear, hear.) Every 
 honourable member felt that. Smith was really talking well. 
 I ask the House, continued the orator, whether it isn't true, 
 that so long as there are men willing to be corrupt, there will 
 always be money to buy 'em. That was putting it epigram- 
 matically: Q. E. D. Mr. Vernon Smith sat down, satisfied 
 that he was a fine specimen of an English gentleman, and that 
 he had hit the nail on the head, and would hear his small 
 speech talked about as the " right sort of thing, sir — no hum- 
 bug," over cutlets in every club in London, in an hour. 
 
 I heard Mr. Labouchere, on the same national theme, on 
 Tuesday, Mr. Labouchere is another heavy Liberal, — one of 
 the higher classes, too, who think that as the people is rather 
 scoundrel, and business must be carried on, why they must be 
 bought, — and he made the same sort of speech ; but he was 
 somewhat more scrupulous. He spoke in mournful cadences of 
 the rascality of Hull, to inquire into the corruption of which 
 he was asking for a commission, in the same way. One of our 
 oldest mercantile communities! Shocking. Every one of the 
 freemen got 305. at elections ; and not one of the ^10 house- 
 holders would vote, unless the candidate permitted hospitality, 
 and hired a committee-room in their houses. But, said Mr. 
 Labouchere, slowly and emphatically, and with that artificial 
 solemnity which he got in the old time, and which he has 
 never lost, and the peculiarity of which is that it is applied to 
 small subjects and great subjects — to the question of a war or 
 the question of a railway, with equal rigidity, " I do believe 
 that there are, nevertheless, a large number of pure, indepen- 
 dent, and respectable persons in the constituency of Hull." 
 Hear — hear, — the House had no doubt ; there might be some. 
 He said why he thought so ; had he not made this motion, the 
 House would have received a petition from Hull, praying for 
 inquiry (^. e. disfranchisement). That settled the matter; the 
 commission would not need the lantern ; there were, no doubt, 
 
86 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, JN'O. 9. 
 
 more than two or three honest men in one of our most ancient 
 mercantile communities. Then, deepening into darker solem- 
 nity, — finishing his sentences with still abrupter spondees, which 
 is ancient House of Commons style, — Mr. Labouchere went into 
 the general question. He had heard opinions that electoral 
 corruption in this country w^as on the increase ; he for one did 
 not believe it. No, sir, his deliberate opinion was, sir, that 
 corruption was on the decrease, — that at the last election it 
 was less than at the previous elections, — and that there was 
 only more talk because there was more virtuous indignation — 
 more public self-respect. You could see a smile flit along the 
 rows, as that came. Mr. Labouchere gives excellent dinners, 
 and is a great favourite, and is frightfully rich ; but, confound 
 it, that was too absurd. He trusted, sir, to this growing public 
 opinion ; it was an age of progress ; and, as an evidence, he 
 instanced the readiness with which the House granted these 
 Commissions. Age of progress. Henry Labouchere saw the 
 age of rotten boroughs — sat for one of them ; he was a zealot 
 for the Reform Bill of 1832 ; and in 1853 he has to accuse our 
 third port of only having "several" honest men in its whole 
 community. But no one is in the House to meet such talk as 
 all this — to say *' it is not true : you are twaddling," or, " If 
 this is true, let us abolish representative institutions:" and 
 Hull had as few defenders as Cambridge. The House is run- 
 ning from the horrors of the system, as a man flies from a 
 bear, — dropping one garment after another, to delay and feed 
 the monster ; or as the shipwrecked do in a rotten boat — throw 
 overboard the heavier cargo. The glaring, hideous evil is 
 obvious, but nobody will face it; and next year, the com- 
 mittees forgotten, we shall have the routine cry for " Reform," 
 and Lord John, for decency's sake, suggesting a "measure." 
 There are only two men who would talk the truth ; and these 
 two would put it in opposite lights. Mr. Roebuck would make 
 the House translate what it means by hear-hearing the trash 
 of the Smiths and Laboucheres ; Sibthorpe, on the spot, cynical 
 about Britons, says his say briefly. Commenting on Mr. 
 Labouchere, on Tuesday, he made his usual reverent and 
 pungent quotation from Job* — "Ha — ha." In the sham at- 
 mosphere, Sibthorpe sounded eloquent for once. 
 
 Observing the conduct of the House of Commons in regard 
 to these election matters, — its utter bewilderment and steady 
 ignoring of general conclusions, and incapacity of consistent, 
 systematic conduct, — assuming the Smiths and Laboucheres 
 to be faithful interpreters of the average notions and feelings 
 on the subject, — assured that there is no deep sensation at all, 
 when you get members out of the House, on the matter^ but a 
 
 • Job xxxix, 25. 
 
PARLIAMEXTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 9. 87 
 
 *^maii of the world" sort of acceptation of things as they 
 are, — it is very difficult to make up oner's mind to the belief 
 that when grave topics of national moment are approached 
 there is any hearty faith either in the present or the future 
 among the debaters. There are other pieces played — and the 
 dresses are different — but isn't it farce, too ? This laissez alter 
 House would appear to the innocent public on Tuesday as hav- 
 ing been very thoughtful and earnest on Monday about Educa- 
 tion : and it would be a consolation to suppose that though 
 there is indifference about the voting generation, as being 
 utterly irreclaimable, there is anxiety to look after the human 
 beings who are growing up, and will return an eternity of 
 Smiths and Laboucheres in the twentieth century. For all 
 this rottenness and corruption, from Carlton Club members 
 who have ^'an object," as Colonel Dickson said, in "getting 
 in," to the 30,?. freemen of Hull, who are of course much more 
 contemptible, because their conscience and manhood go at so 
 much lower a figure, the remedy would truly appear to be 
 *^ National Education." If there was hope anywhere for a 
 resurrection in the Golgothic, " so much ahead," public spirit 
 of the age, it was in Lord John's long announced measure, 
 with which, as a first dish, the third course of the Session was 
 to be commenced on Monday night. To see and hear all about it 
 it was necessary to be early at the gallery door, for on such a 
 great night, on such a measure, there would be a rush. That 
 was the natural theory. There were not twenty strangers in 
 the Speaker's gallery : and that Speaker's gallery, observe, is a 
 barometrical index of public interest, — as it fills or empties, 
 topics excite or deaden, orators rise or sink. Then the House 
 itself would at least be crowded ? When Lord John Russell 
 rose to arrange for the enlightenment of the rising generation 
 there were not one hundred members: and it is odd, but no 
 sooner was he on his legs than a third of those who had been 
 there disappeared. Perhaps Lord John now ranks with the 
 bores : but, remember, that it was two hours to dinner still ; 
 and whatever his own cold, unsatisfying, common-place, he was 
 going to announce the intentions, on a great theme, of a strong 
 Government, which included nearly every statesman identified 
 with the subject. And yet this leader of the House of Com- 
 mons, of whom you will hear men say, " Can't be done with- 
 out, sir, — Lord John has an enormous personal following, — a 
 man who inspires affection, sir," — commenced his talk by the 
 remark, that it was quite unnecessary to beseech attention to 
 his opening, since the question was one in which was felt a 
 universal interest. Tiiere was a mal a'propos naivete about 
 that which forced a laugh, and gave a ludicrous turn to all 
 that was to follow. Why describe what followed? Every 
 one's mind is made up about the measure ; and perhaps the 
 
88 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 9. 
 
 general conception is very accurate — that it was about the 
 best measure a too religious country will admit of, — which 
 proves much for our contentious piety, and little for the 
 enlightenment of which we talk at our public dinners : — and 
 the manner in which the measure was proiFered was corre- 
 sponding ; — a compromise between an oration and a communi- 
 cation, — a State paper without the punctuation, — ^the which 
 Lord John (Pitt put iu the colons) can to any extent speak off- 
 hand. Always loose, languid, and lumbering, Lord John 
 Russell was, on this occasion, more than ordinarily bald, crude, 
 cold, and disheartening. He was not proud of his scheme; 
 and the tone was that of a man somewhat "down" and 
 ashamed; for it is his own fault that he excited the impossible 
 expectations, having ceaselessly for the last six years talked of 
 the urgency of Education, and having deliberately and afore- 
 thought made this measure the glory of the Aberdeen Ad- 
 ministration. He did not know that a new Prince was coming 
 to give eclat to the Session. 
 
 The debate on the speech was as such debates usually are — 
 utter waste of time, nobody knowing what they were talking 
 about, and no one appreciating the circumstances. Mr. W. J. 
 Fox took the opportunity of delivering his annual able and 
 suggestive speech in favour of the secular system, not seeing 
 that after Lord John's more than ever emphatic declaration 
 against that sj^stem, and that after such a scheme from such a 
 Cabinet — a coalition Cabinet, which had the utmost interest in 
 doing all that Avas possible in this direction with the country 
 they are governing — it would be as practical to propose the 
 non-introduction of an address congratulating the Queen on 
 fecundity, as to urge on the existing Parliament the regular 
 rout of the education-mongers who prefer to see children 
 '• heathens," (it is their phrase,) than not to have them of their 
 own particular class of Christians. But Mr. Fox was listened 
 to (Lord John had long finished, and the House had come back 
 from dinner) ; and, having concluded his quiet, argumentative 
 protest, he had got the usual gain — another year — which is 
 something, seeing that to time alone, he, like Mr. Labouchere, 
 can trust. But we shall have some good debates on the Go- 
 vernment proposal when it comes on in more complete and 
 better comprehended proportions ; and it is to be hoped that 
 some one will apply to the.education discussions the'moral that, 
 if it is all true what we hear, — that the masses are all bribable, 
 the wealthy all bribers, and the aristocracy all like the substi- 
 tute for the Percy — then it is time to put National Society, 
 British and Foreign Society, and Committee of Council on one 
 side, and try some other plan — say Mr. Fox's, — being tolerably 
 safe that under no i^egime, for our enlightenment, could we be 
 very much worse. Or Mr. Phinn's plan. Mr. Phi an — to 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, KO. 9. 89 
 
 whose rising position in the Eouse previous reference has been 
 made in this place, for the purpose of showing all barristers 
 that when they become members they must absolutely cease to 
 be forensic, put conceit and priggishness on one side, and be 
 submissive and deferential — said, in the debate on Monday, 
 that he greatly regretted in Lord John's plan the absence of 
 the " compulsory element." Mr. Phinn is a really enlightened 
 man ; quite abreast of his age ; and not an unworthy follower, in 
 liberalism and integrity, of Mr. Roebuck, at Bath ; but it must 
 be confessed this beloved of a crack Liberal constituency has 
 oddly despotic notions of improving the world. He would make 
 it a crime in fathers not to have their children instructed — ra- 
 tional and philosophic, but queer as a proposition in this country 
 and in this century. The same eccentric mental tendency — the 
 result of intense good-humoured and gallant philanthropy, and 
 restless impatience of the Fox and Labouchere recipes, was visi- 
 ble on Wednesday in his amendment on Mr. Fitzroy's bill to 
 apply to the characteristic of British back-street Society — the 
 belabouring of wives. Mr. Phinn — the incarnation of the senti- 
 ment he was wanting to legislate on — a gentleman who (but then 
 he's not married), full of lusty manhood, would undoubtedly 
 commit justifiable homicide upon any assailant of a woman, — led 
 fifty-eight other gentlemen into a lobby of the Senate, April 6, 
 1853, in favour of the principle of man-flogging. His answer 
 to an objection was very rich. " Public flogging," said Lord 
 Palmerston, *' would brutalize the offender still more." " Then 
 let it be private," said Mr. Phinn ; a response which calls to 
 mind the old House of Commons story of the legislator who 
 was opposed to the Chimney Act, and argued, that if it was 
 cruel to clean a chimney by dragging up a goose, why 
 two ducks would do as well. The motives in this case are 
 clearly good ; and the House, which was attentive, and really 
 in earnest in backing this excellent bill, did full justice to 
 them, and Mr. Phinn, being a single member, is exposed to no 
 sneers. But if we consider the morale of the men who fol- 
 lowed him, we begin to question whether these rich and happy 
 fellows are so immaculate in their marital relations that they 
 were entitled to sentence to flogging the wretched savages who, 
 when they quarrel, are more savage than dogs, since dogs have 
 exceptional patience for the weaker sex. He only who had 
 never sinned should have called for the whip ; just as only 
 those honourable gentlemen and noble lords who have never 
 traded with convictions for power, or pleasure, or profit, are in 
 a condition to despise Hull freemen. In respect of this ques- 
 tion, as to Mr. Phinn's brutes, it was a good mot^ made on Wed- 
 nesday {yiot publicly), that when the rich man has a row with 
 his spouse, he can seek refuge in his club ; but the poor man 
 has no club, and, accordingly, takes to the cudgel. 
 
 The busy air visible last night was affecting; and it was 
 
90 PARLIAMENTAllY RETROSPECT, NO. 9. 
 
 very urgent indeed that something should be done, in the shape 
 of a reduction of the national debt, to balance the increase in 
 the royal family. Mr. Gladstone was developed as a great 
 financier by a most marvellously-complicated plan — the intri- 
 cacy of which may be judged of by the fact, that the whole 
 Stock Exchange has been puzzled, and that all the reliable city 
 men in the House confessed themselves last night bewildered — 
 Mr. Gladstone, revelling in all the financial refinements and 
 economical ingenuities, was in his element. He is the most rapid 
 speaker who ever spoke in the House of Commons, and, with the 
 analogous speed-distinguished Macaulay when Macaulay was 
 oratorical, he is also the most elegant of sentence-makers, speak- 
 ing speeches, according to the reporters, which can be transferred 
 from short into long-hand without the alteration of a point or 
 the turn of a phrase. In that way he has long been regarded 
 as a phenomenon, — the climactic specimen of the facilely ver- 
 bose style of modern Parliament. But he got this species of 
 fame as a talker about subjects admitting of generalities, and 
 it was never supposed his special gifts would allow of his 
 rushing through a Budget as Charles Slatthews dashes through 
 a patter song. It was a Budget last night ; about a page of 
 a morning paper spoken in two hours I And he hardly re- 
 ferred to a note, never paused a moment, broke through cheers, 
 dashed over interpellations — logic, figures, illustrations, extracts 
 — all pell mell, with a whirl and a fury that took the breath 
 away, left stenography, you could easily see, panting after, only 
 just not in vain, and put it utterly out of the power of the 
 honourable gentlemen who wanted to speculate by nine in the 
 morning, or to speak before twelve at night, to put on to paper 
 the slightest hint of the points avalanched transversely through 
 their heads. And he did it all with the utmost ease, and got 
 to the end without turning a hair ; and in his after explana- 
 tions, which were perpetual during the evening, adding notes 
 to the astonishing text, he was as cool, quiet, and as little ex- 
 cited as though he had been merely answering William Williams 
 a question about the benefits of economical administration 
 in the purchase of tooth-picks for treasury clerks. His was the 
 only speech. Mr. Disraeli's was quite a failure, and fell dis- 
 appointingly ; not that he did not seem right in his notion that 
 all the avant-puffing of the plan had been as disproportioned 
 to the plan itself as the mercantile connection in Cairo between 
 figs and the Prophet — that it was all a hruit pour une omelette 
 — but that Mr. Disraeli elaborated a conviction in the audient 
 minds that he was not "up" in the subject, and was inca- 
 pable of following his supplanter in the Finance Ministry 
 on this ground, which he himself had cultivated too much 
 like an amateur Protectionist, converted suddenly into a model 
 farmer, with the success usually attendant on such experi- 
 ments. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, KO. 10. 91 
 
 No. 10. 
 
 April 16. 
 The House of Commons recipe for a Coalition Government 
 would appear to be, "when taken to be well shaken;" and 
 the Coalition Government, like " women, spaniels, and walnut- 
 trees," seems to be the better for beating — at any rate takes 
 it as a mutter of course. It set the fashion of " unprincipled 
 combinations," and accepts the penalty; Mr. Disraeli having 
 to the full his revenge on Thursday for the coalescing vote 
 which drove him prematurely from office ; and Mr. Butt and 
 Mr. ,Cobden, on Tuesday, on the Kilmainham and Clitheroe 
 matters, affording to the nation ample evidence that there 
 may, after all, be some inconvenience from a too philosophical 
 dispensation with " Government by party." But, properly 
 considered, the teasing incidents of the week contribute per- 
 haps new evidence of the immense strength of the Cabinet, 
 which has illustrated the fable of the bundle of Sticks, and the 
 sagacity of Lord Shelburne's notion, that if the great families 
 would only share and share alike, the destinies of humanity 
 would be easily manageable. A weak Government would have 
 jbeen forced into resignation after such a set of divisions ; a 
 strong Government does not feel the blows, hardly thinks it 
 decent to notice the intentions, of dwarfs in league against the 
 giant. Besides, is not Lord John leader, and is he not famous 
 as the Toots of politics, whose view of any catastrophe is that 
 it's of no consequence'? Struck on one cheek, he is notorious 
 for a development of face ; or, at all events, the extent of his 
 indignation when kicked has been the procrastinating " You'd 
 better not do that again." The present is also a Government 
 which takes too high ground to be sensitive to petty assaults. 
 Lost in comprehensive considerations about civil and religious 
 liberty, why should it mind a snub about Kilmainham, a cor- 
 rection about Clitheroe, or a setting down about a paltry 
 200,000^. worth of advertisement duty? Pistol Gladstone, 
 pressed for a reckoning with wanters of situations, is exclama- 
 tory about golden joys and the reduction of the national debt. 
 Skimpole Sidney Herbert, pushed at the doors of Kilmainham 
 for payment of a debt for lodgings, goes off into statesmanlike 
 generalities about the beauties of benevolence, and the bou- 
 quet of British virtue. Cheapen literature ! said Lord John 
 to Mr. Gibson, " How can you waste time in such talk about 
 details, when I have put before you a bill for national educa- 
 
92 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 10. 
 
 tion?" "Stop cornipfcion" is the cry of committee after com- 
 mittee, and Lord John does agree, generally, to a commission, 
 to pass the time ; but what more can you expect when he's so 
 engaged in the crowning victory of religious liberty which he 
 got hist night? Leader of a Government beaten four times in 
 a week, you might suppose some slight modesty in his tone in 
 the presence of the triumphant Jew gentleman, who rewards 
 by defeats the Cabinet which removes Hebrew disabilities. But 
 Lord John, always looking after great principles, is quite in- 
 different about small facts. Religious liberty 'is his creed when 
 he passes an Ecclesiastical Titles' Bill, and political liberty is 
 bis creed when he agrees with Lord Palmerston (when the two 
 a^ree, their unanimity is wonderful) that the system of police 
 visits to political refugees is suitable to the English climate. 
 All these inconsistencies are discerned accurately enough by 
 the parties who have an interest in disabusing the public of a 
 credulity in conservative liberality; and though there are ad- 
 vantages about a coalition which includes both the preacher 
 and the frightful example, the influence of the last is in this 
 case likely to be the longest felt. Those interpellations about 
 Kossuth last night were extremely inconvenient to a Govern- 
 ment which wanted to look bold advanced liberalism through 
 the immediately following debate on the third reading of the 
 Kothschild bill. Lord Palmerston jauntily cut the connection 
 between the Treasury bench and the below the gangway, in 
 refusing proper information upon the prompt and noble 
 appeals of Kossuth's friends — Walmsley and Duncombe ; and 
 the consequence was, that when Lord John went into the 
 lobby at one in the morning with the Radicals, the Radicals 
 felt not that they were being led, but that the association was 
 as accidental and as unsympathetic as on the previous evening 
 with Mr. Disraeli and Lord Stanley. Lord Palmerston, apolo- 
 gising in a lively way, and, as a matter of politeness, to cher 
 Aberdeen for his revolutionary reputation (God knows Lord 
 Palmerston was always maligned and was always a sound 
 reactionnaire — only incom,pris), may have been a ceremony con- 
 tributory to Cabinet council comforts, and the pleasantries of 
 that Greenwich whitebait in July, to which statesmen look as 
 the real posterity. But if Lord Palmerston insists on a justi- 
 fication of his tendencies, the subscribers to the portrait must 
 in decency shrink away from his friendship ; and take away 
 liberal Lord Palmerston, and nothing remains but a coalition 
 consisting entirely of frightful examples. This is certain, 
 that the Radicals yesterday evening knew that the Govern- 
 ment had been blundering about the Refugees, and inferred 
 from the Home Secretary's too audacious reserve that the 
 Cabinet had stumbled with an intent (Her Majesty's nerves 
 must be consulted now, and dynasties hang oddly together), 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 10. 93 
 
 and equally certain it is that the Radicals were very angry, and 
 that the ten minutes' talk between Palmerstou, Walmsley, T. 
 Duncombe, and Bright, separated the Administration of Lord 
 Aberdeen from the popular sympathies further than even Mr. 
 Disraeli, with all his knowledge of the men to be operated 
 upon, could that morning, ruminating on his triumph, have 
 contemplated. This was traceable in the succeeding debate; 
 only Mr. Bethel], who is quaintly professional and talks too 
 much in unpunctuated italics, to be either quite interesting or 
 quite useful, supported the Government: and his support was 
 as disinterested as that of the whitebait dinner waiters ; and 
 only Mr. Bright supported the bill — a nice distinction which 
 Mr. Bright made unaffectedly prominent. The fifteenth debate 
 of the same bill could hardly, one would think, be made inte- 
 restiiig, and induce much good oratory. But last night should 
 have been the debate, inasmuch as Government is supposed to 
 be calculating whether it shall not resign if defeated by the 
 Lords; and yet the languor of the talk is afflictingly impres- 
 sive. Not that there was no provocation to the Liberals. 
 Only conceive Mr. Bernal Osborne free (I am mistaken in him 
 if he does not now wish he were), replying in hock and soda 
 water tones to Mr. Gumming Bruce, who remarked, in a loud 
 Scotch accent, that he was not " eentollerant," inasmuch as he 
 thought the Jews "eenteresting" as a people, certainly at 
 piesent tossed and scattered under the Divine wrath, but 
 doubtless in time to be received into the Divine favour, " and let 
 us not presumptuously accelerate the period!" Was there no 
 provocation to Liberal wit in the absence of Mr. Disraeli, 
 while Mr. Walpole was showing that if the Jews were ad- 
 mitted into the House of Commons, a Jew might some day be 
 made a Privy-Councillor — a frightful consummation in the eyes 
 of a Protestant gentleman 1 But Mr. Osborne is busy victual- 
 ling the Navy with pork ; and Mr. Bright is too savage to be 
 satirical. Of his powerful logic, his daring invective, and his 
 overwhelming sneers, as evidenced last night, let Manchester, 
 however, be proud, as it is her inclination to be ; and, above 
 all, let Radical constituencies who prefer Whigs because 
 your William Williamses are laughed or jeered down, observe 
 that Mr. Bright made his speech last night in as full a 
 House, half full only when he rose, as Sir Robert Peel could 
 get in his free-trade days ; and that the ultra quaker, ultra 
 democratic gentleman, advocating negative Christianity, and 
 attacking the House of Lords, the Bishops, and the respectable 
 interests, was as patiently and as deferentially listened to as 
 Prince Albert when he tells Lord Clarendon what his young 
 friend the Emperor of Austria says of Louis Kossuth. So 
 much for great ability when it condescends to have patience, 
 and to study the forms of parliamentary good-breeding. Five 
 
94 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 10. 
 
 years ago, Mr. John Bright had a worse hearing than pathetical 
 Mr. Murrough could get now. Three years ago only, Lord 
 John Russell complained feelingly of Mr. Bright's violent man- 
 ners and narrow mind. Last night. Lord John, blushing for his 
 passion for religious liberty, could not find words strong enough 
 to express his admiration for the most accomplished of tribunes, 
 who has become also the most exquisite of elocutionists, and 
 the most impressive of gentlemen. 
 
 But, despite the intense commiseration of the Cabinet for 
 Jews, what is occurring, in illustration of coalition tendencies 
 in other directions, is slowly damaging both the individual and 
 collective position of Ministers in the country. This eagerness 
 to take advantage of Kossuth's supposed indiscretion to placate 
 Austria does not look well in Lords who are, far excellence^ the 
 "Ministers of England ;" and, testing their principles by their 
 details, there are other awkward inferences. There seems, in 
 the first place, a careful management of the " corruption'* 
 material, which is being turned up, so as to damage the Reform 
 cause — Lord John putting up his Vernon Smiths and Labou- 
 cheres, to hesitate suspicions of the results of a further exten- 
 sion of the sufirage ; and, in the next place, the small educa- 
 tional bill, the anti-press opposition, the attempt to shirk 
 the Indian responsibility, and the postponement or putting on 
 one side of all other pressing great topics, all show that an 
 eftect of a coalition is the eifect of too numerous a corps of 
 cooks. Departmentally, there is progress and success. Sir 
 James Graham at the Admiralty, Mr. Cardwell at the Board of 
 Trade, the Duke of Newcastle at the Colonial Office, and Lord 
 Palmerston {vide his activity on behalf of Austria) at the 
 Home Office, are doing wonders. But there is no trace of any 
 oneness in the Cabinet — no hint that all the talents can resolve 
 themselves into one genius, and conceive worthily the great- 
 ness of their duties and their opportunities, as a Government. 
 There is pettiness in the attempt to deal with the election ex- 
 posures ; there is a little mind in the Education Bill. The 
 shame to the Treasury bench, on Thursday,* was not in the 
 numbers, but in the pettiness of Lord John Russell, and the 
 fidgetty deprecations of Mr. Gladstone, who has sunk too soon 
 into the cant of Chancellors of the Exchequer, and too readily 
 shirked his responsibility as a somewhat trusted and petted 
 statesman, by the affectation of scrupulosity as guardian of a 
 revenue which experience shows bears very well too much 
 minute meddling. It was said, on Thursday night, after the 
 divisions, that Government knew they were to be beaten, 
 courted defeat, and provoked it purposely, and in the simulated 
 degradation had some deep design, which leading journals will 
 
 * Beaten on the question of Advertisement Dut}^ 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 10. 95 
 
 be requested not to penetrate. It is undoubtedly true that 
 it was well known on Thursday morning that the Tories would 
 " dodge'' on the first resolution ; that the brigade, led by news- 
 paper proprietors, would go with Mr. Gibson on all the resolu- 
 tions ; and that, if so, Ministers could not escape. But the 
 speeches of the Ministers in the debate, while they indicate 
 apprehensions, indicate no tact : for Mr. Gladstone was angrily 
 obstinate, Mr. Sidney Herbert furious with Mr. Disraeli, and 
 Lord John took no pains to anticipate Lord Robert Grosvenor 
 in warning Liberals not to play the game of the Tories. And 
 what are we to think of a Cabinet which is so destitute of 
 adroitness as to quarrel with the House for 180,000^. — knowing 
 when they enter the fight that they are certain to be beaten, 
 and that the consequence of the defeat would be to weaken 
 their own position when they came to the Budget? 
 
 Messrs. Gladstone and Herbert might be afraid to provoke 
 opponents in the press who want no change ; but if they did 
 seek to have the abolition forced on them, they might, at least, 
 have arranged for a more dignified retreat than they were able 
 to command after Mr. Disraeli had spoken for the Tories, and 
 Mr. Maguire for the Brigade. Very slight satisfaction can be 
 obtained by denouncing Mr. Disraeli's " impudence."* His 
 effrontery was sublime, no doubt : his cool dishonesty deserved 
 the hysterical reproaches of bewildered Lord Robert Grosvenor, 
 who was shocked at the idea of voting for the motion if there 
 was a chance of its being carried. But if the effrontery is suc- 
 cessful, Mr. Disraeli is laughed with, and not laughed at : 
 and though Mr. Gladstone's clerks will sympathise with him — 
 having to get a bran new Budget out by Monday — they will 
 nevertheless join the pleased public, and grin among them- 
 selves. The strongest of Governments cannot afford to look 
 ludicrous ; and Mr. Gladstone's perplexity, despite the tragic 
 rebuke which he now frowns, is excessively amusing. Mr. 
 Disraeli, in his dexterous speech, confessed, in accounting for 
 his readiness to face a cheap and universal press, that he and 
 his party did not appeal merely to the reason of mankind; 
 they address themselves also to the feelings — as in off*ering dear 
 loaves, say : and an admiring country, while it will condemn 
 j the logic of Mr. Disraeli's conduct, will be apt to enjoy very 
 j heartily its point. Lord Robert Grosvenor was astonished at 
 I the right honourable gentleman ; the conduct of the right 
 j honourable gentleman, sir, can only lower the character of pub- 
 I lie men — the Government that was about to be beaten cheering 
 j the sentiment vehemently. But Mr. Disraeli has never in his 
 I career aimed at the chivalric ; and at present he is devoting all 
 || jhb attention to teasing and torturing men who are conceitedly 
 
 I * In office, in the same year, lie had opposed a similar motion. 
 
96 PxiRLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 10. 
 
 too strong, in whose liberality he does not believe any more 
 than he does in Lord Derby's, and who, to get in, put him out. 
 The character of public men is far more injured by liberal 
 statesmen turning Austrian spies, and by a Government, pledg- 
 ing itself to education, carelessly refusing to take excise 
 shackles off the diffusion of knowledge ; and most of all, the 
 character of public men suffers by such a manifestation of bad 
 management as blindly inviting defeat on a popular ques- 
 tion. The character of public men suffers from public men 
 twaddling ; and if we get over the routine deference we pay to 
 men in position, we shall find that Lord John twaddled in his 
 answer to Mr. Gibson and Mr. Bright. Contrast the intellect 
 and the statesmanship of the speeches of the Manchester school, 
 imperfect as that school is in many respects, with the speeches 
 of Ministers — make every allowance for the position of guardians 
 of the revenue — and you will see that both Lord John and Mr. 
 Gladstone fail in an appreciation of the spirit of their time.* 
 As to Mr. Gibson, so unpretending as to put his commonsense 
 almost as commonplace, he nearly roused enthusiasm. The 
 question should, perhaps, in strict propriety, be in the hands of 
 one of the many journalists who are now in the House. There 
 are more journalists in the present House of Commons than 
 ever were in Louis Philippe's Chamber of Deputies. But the 
 advantages of a disinterested advocacy are manifold, and it is 
 just to say that Mr. Gibson has mastered the controversy in a 
 wonderful way. He exhausted the question on Thursday, and 
 so cleverly mixed up his abstract argument and practical illus- 
 trations that he was interesting, lively, and cheered by a 
 tolerably full House, to his last sentence ; achieving thus an 
 oratorical success which many much abler and greater men 
 might be proud of. If he committed a fault, it was in assum- 
 ing that the House had confidence in the people, which he did 
 throughout ; whereas, foreseeing defeat on the two resolutions, 
 he should, this time, have appealed to the people against the 
 House, and dared the truth. But his faith in the faith of the 
 House would appear to be a fact. He was speaking of the 
 frauds on the Post OfiSce, and went on to say, he did not think 
 that unstamped publications were frequently sent through the 
 post ; "for my opinion is that there is a great indisposition 
 among Englishmen generally to defraud any branch of the 
 revenue." Thereat the whole House, of all sides, people's 
 party included, burst into a joyous yell of laughter at Mr, 
 Gibson's simplicity. Mr. Gibson was puzzled, stared, stopped, 
 but could not make it out, and went on again. But the mora] 
 of the yell was plain enough ; the Commons House, which also 
 cheers and crows Smith, and admits with Labouchere that there 
 
 * Mr Gladstone put himself right before the session was over. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 10. 97 
 
 may be a few honest men in Hull, has no great belief in the 
 public virtue of the Commons ; and if Mr. Gibson had had 
 more self-possession, which you could hardly expect of him, 
 in the full swing of his argument, he would have taken a note 
 of the fact, and parenthetically communicated it for the benefit 
 of the enlightened people. Mr. Bright made also a telling 
 speech ; and though it might be too evident that his reason 
 for wanting the taxes off knowledge was that, when they were 
 off, there might be a Manchester school daily paper in London 
 — and it is very odd that Manchester can never get a London 
 press platform — his trenchant syllogisms were none the less 
 effectual that we could detect his motive ; since, why should 
 not jMr. Bright dictate a morning paper in London, as well as 
 half-a-dozen weekly papers in the provinces ? Third in the 
 Manchester triumvirate came Mr. Cobden, and he was very 
 practical, offering to make a bargain with Government, and 
 to give up educational grants if they would leave him free the 
 educational machinery of the press. There was "a laugh" at 
 that ; but there was a solemn point in it, which should have 
 told more on that little-caring assembly. Mr. Cobden, how- 
 ever, made a strange omission in his speech : he did not spe- 
 cify, as he did in his late Leeds speech, that the new papers he 
 wants must publish without opinions ; or, in other words, that 
 what he means by enfranchisement of the press is the multipli- 
 cation of uncriticised orations of Richard Cobden. The Mem- 
 ber for the West Riding would go down to postejity as a 
 Demosthenes — without notes : a desire which indicates improper 
 unfamiliarity with the difficulties of education, and less con- 
 sideration for posterity than is usual with that most conscientious 
 of men. 
 
 Incapacity for bold action — for that first function of govern- 
 ment — leading the nation — is too visible in the fatuous and 
 feeble proceedings suggested or acquiesced in by Lord John 
 Russell in regard to the election petitions. Confusion and con- 
 tradiction is still going on : commission after commission is 
 issuing upon opposite grounds ; committee after committee is 
 reporting differently on the same character of evidence ; and 
 yet the official " leader," to whom others look in their non- 
 responsibility or their helplessness, is not only doing nothing, 
 but he appears unconscious that it is not his function to pro- 
 pose system and principle where now there is neither one nor 
 the other. And the difficulty is only beginninof, for when the 
 Commissioners have reported, with the possibility of only re- 
 porting in one way, the disfranchisen^ent begins ; and the already 
 captious tone of the Lords, even in such a case as that of Can- 
 terbury, promises very combative conferences between the two 
 Houses. In fact, we shall be in the middle of general dis- 
 franchisement about the time (early next session) when a con- 
 
 H 
 
98 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, I?'0. 10. 
 
 temporaneous extension of the suffrage is due ; and what a fine 
 spectacle it will be for an enlightened nation to have this sort 
 of " votes" in circulation : — Monday, orders of the day : 1. 
 Parliamentary Reform Bill (Lord John Russell), second read- 
 ing. 2. Disfranchisement of Hull (Lord John Russell). Fri- 
 day : — 1. Parliamentary Reform Bill Committee. 2. Disfran- 
 chisement of Liverpool (Mr. Cardwell). Yet that is exactly the 
 catastrophe impending, and for which no one seems preparing ; 
 so that we have only two things to think of Ministers ; either 
 that they are very great blunderers, or they intend to arrange 
 excuses for another year's adjustment of the long-promised 
 reform of the Reform Bill. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, JfO. 11, • 99 
 
 No. 11.* 
 
 No. 32, Cheshiam Place, is our British Temple of Janus ; and its 
 opening at one o'clock to-day (if the plans of the week are not 
 changed at the last moment) is the signal that there is war 
 again in the land. Mr. Disraeli is reported to have said re- 
 cently, previous to the delivery of the Budget, "Strong Govern- 
 ment — Bah! I can turn them out whenever I like :" and the 
 question of the day is — does Mr. Disraeli like to turn out the 
 Government ? Fakradeen, as those who remember the sketch 
 of Disraeli by Disraeli, in " Tancred," know, excelled in " com- 
 binations," and there are several at his disposal now. Mr. 
 Disraeli and Mr. Duffy are images of each other — ethnological 
 evidences of the contact of the Semitic and Milesian races — 
 and fate seems to suggest, as oddly, a political confederation, 
 headed by these leaders, of the extreme Protestant and Tory 
 with the extreme Catholic and Revolutionary party against a 
 Government which has coalesced, and so cancelled, and thus 
 admirably represents the period in its recommendatory nega- 
 tions. It is an age of coalitions ; a coalition turned out Mr. 
 Disraeli ; a coalition threatens to turn out Mr. Gladstone ; 
 and this result of national acquiescence in the cry of " mea- 
 sures, not men" — as well cry, manhood, but not man! — is the 
 attainment of an admirable party juste milieu — the state of 
 dead lock. Listen to an Irish Brigadier laying it down to Mr. 
 Hayter, who strokes his chin, while calculating is there any 
 place that would suit the honourable member ? ^' You see you 
 must give us what we ask ; neither you nor the Tories can 
 keep power if we keep aloof from you. Give us a repeal of 
 the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill and Tenant Right (and, by the 
 by, get rid of that infernal Keogh) and we'll disband. We 
 have you on the hip — we have Disraeli on the hip — and you 
 must make terms, or — of course I never talk to him, but I 
 have occasionally met Mackenzie — prejudiced about Maynooth, 
 but a deuced good fellow — or, — I merely throw this out as a 
 suggestion, — he wilV A Great Briton, like Hayter, does not 
 like being at the mercy of the Brigade ; but he knows all this 
 is true ; and if England is to be sold, Hayter would rather 
 not let Mackenzie make the bargain. Observe the posi- 
 tion of parties ; remembering that Mr. Duffy can get 30 
 
 * April 23, after Mr. Gladstone's Budget had been brought in and 
 favourably received. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 PARLIAIVIENTAIIY RETROSPECT, ITO. Hi 
 
 whipped — for Ireland is in earnest, and would only return the 
 faithful — and a dissolution is not impossible. Say that Disraeli 
 leads an amendment for a differentiation of the income tax, he 
 has 200 at his back. The Radicals would, much against their 
 will, shrink away from the Government — Disraeli and Glad- 
 stone (not counting on all the Radicals even) would then be 
 fairly matched ; and Messrs Duffy and Moore could turn the 
 scale. Again, supposing Mr. Disraeli led an amendment 
 against the extension of the income-tax to Ireland, and that 
 he would have the whole of the Irish members with him (not 
 an impossible rascality), the Government could hardly escape. 
 Supposing that Mr. Gibson leads an amendment for the total 
 repeal of the advertisement duty, Mr. Disraeli would vote with 
 him ; and there again the Brigade could choose which jobbery 
 should be heaviest. If the Brigade does turn out the Govern- 
 ment, England would be tolerably disposed to disfranchise 
 Ireland ; and consideration of the consequences may induce 
 sagacity. If Mr. Disraeli put the Government in a minority, 
 and so tested the Government threat — "the Budget or a 
 Dissolution" — Mr. Disraeli would only be bringing Govern- 
 ment back to power with greater strength and chances than 
 ever ; and Fakradeen does not affect " combinations " for the 
 sake of resultless kaleidoscopic groupings. Mr. Disraeli is not 
 ready ; Lord Derby had no policy to announce last Saturday 
 in St. James's Square, where Lady Derby allows followers — 
 and Tadpole would decidedly dissuade from going to the coun- 
 try without a cry — without even a whimper about protection 
 — more especially as those " cursed committees," cut up so 
 awfully this year ; it would be no joke finding the Colonel 
 Dickson class to " bleed." The Budget, then, has a good chance 
 of passing ; and, of course, if Ministers saw they were safe 
 from any attempts to turn them out, they would consent to one 
 or two alterations in detail. So much the Radicals think they 
 are entitled to ask as salve for forswearing their devotion to 
 differentiation. And Gladstone, too, to have refused them this 
 — Gladstone, the greatest differentiator of his age — a man who 
 not only spread the one hide of Oxford over the whole of Rome 
 — but, first of all, split all the hairs ! 
 
 But isn't this position of Radicalism, — obliged to vote for 
 that income tax which their Committee reported against, and 
 which they told their constituents they would never have, — - 
 rather impotent and ludicrous ? " There is not the slightest 
 compulsion," an independent Government observes, '' but if 
 you don't, — vote against us, certainly, — we'll dissolve and 
 appeal." There 's the pound of flesh you bargained for ; — 
 will you "bleed"? People's party is sulky, but tamed: the 
 " Manchester school," which talked so large on Monday night, 
 on Tuesday, and even on Wednesday, finds even Manchester is 
 
PARLIAMEZJTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 11. 101 
 
 not with, it, and gloomily gives way. They don't like the 
 Government, they are angry with Palmerston for his ko-too to 
 Francis Joseph : they are vexed with Osborne because he only 
 jests at them ; with Molesworth because, like other parvenus, 
 he affects having lived in the Cabinet all his life, and has got 
 more short-sighted than ever — the constant glare of red tape 
 and red boxes has that effect on our public men. They are 
 angry, generally, because they would have given Government 
 carte blanche if they only got the differentiation — that point 
 over which Mr, Hume, like Mr. Dick, can never get, in his 
 " memorials." Ask the milder Radicals what they will do, and 
 they say, ^' I won't play Disraeli's game — he's a dangerous 
 man." Ask the more ultra, and they shrug their shoulders, 
 and say, " What's the use of dissolving before the Reform 
 Bill ? What's the use of riddling another House through that 
 Committee corridor which stinks of corruption already?" 
 But, still, people's party would be more powerful if they would 
 do what the Brigade do — stick together, and propose terms — 
 for Lord Aberdeen is the most impressionable of men, as Lord 
 John is supposed to know now, and as Prince Albert knew 
 when he chose him to govern England. The great want of the 
 Radicals is a leader — not for the House, there are only too 
 many clever men among them — but for private influence and 
 control ; and until they get hold of a man with the position 
 and character to fashion them into rational organisation, they 
 will always be comparatively useless for the people, and aii 
 grumbling and unhappy a set as they are this week. Lord 
 Goderich, promising to be the better Russell of a nobler 
 liberalism, may see his way when he is older, and when Mr. 
 Dick has finished his memorial : but when the Democracy's 
 delegates go into the Chesham Place dining-room to-day, they 
 will be very helpless for want of a plan ; and Lord John 
 will find the screw of dissolution effectual for all Mr. Glad- 
 etone's purposes. 
 
 Undoubtedly, however, the weakness of the Radical posi- 
 tion is to be traced, not only to their own bad tactics, but 
 to the distinct acceptance of the Budget by the country. 
 Mr. Gladstone has passed on to the first place in the eyes 
 of the nation, as financier ; and, after all, in this country, 
 your greatest financier is your greatest statesman. Peel won 
 his Premiership by his practical grasp of the material business 
 — the management of the taxes, so as to put them in the least 
 unacceptable form ; the great deficiency in Lord John Russell's 
 career is, that his spirited generalisations about great principles 
 have been unaccompanied by striking conceptions of finance ; 
 Mr. Disraeli broke down, as a prominent man, from being 
 unequal to a Budget occasion ; and Mr. Gladstone, who has 
 taken his business countrymen by storm, must be watched for 
 
102 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. II. 
 
 the future as the man into whose hands will by degrees come 
 the wielding of Great British destinies. The "pony Peel" 
 was a misnomer : he has succeeded to his chief as obviously 
 next man. His new position in the country is reflected 
 in the House of Commons ; and the technical " leading " 
 by Lord John now becomes not only ridiculous, but offen- 
 siye. Mr. Gladstone stands high aboye all his colleagues, in 
 either House, in personal and political character — in deep and 
 earnest honesty of purpose — and in the amplitude of his know- 
 ledge, not only of the speciality of his department, but em- 
 phatically of public affairs ; and obviously he was judged too 
 hastily (journalists cannot help that) in supposing that he did 
 not profoundly appreciate the tone of the House and the spirit 
 of the dominant bodies of his countrymen. Boundless in his 
 ambition, such a man for the future has those around him at 
 his service. With a House of Commons position of twenty 
 years, his lead becomes a privilege which exhausted resources 
 like those of Lord John Russell can no longer dispute, and 
 which there is not another man to pretend to. Mr. Gladstone 
 answers at least to Mr. Disraeli's description of Peel — ''^the 
 most perfect member of Parliament in the country;" and he 
 is something more than Peel — he has more dignity in his pose 
 (Peel would have succeeded even more had he not been so 
 plausible), and a finer tone as a speaker. The leading journal 
 happily said of Mr. Gladstone's oratorical style, that it was 
 " copious rotundity ;" and that is exactly the style for Parlia- 
 ment, on great occasions. Mr. Gladstone, candid, argumenta- 
 tive, dignified, but deferential^ is superb in debate ; while his 
 only great parliamentary rival, Mr. Disraeli, is greater in ai 
 discussion (there is a strong distinction), because Mr. Disraeli 
 aims at the "elegant conversation," which somebody said, 
 taking only one view, was the correct House of Commons style. 
 The two men should always be vis-d-vis — and as now — the 
 eternal Pitt and Fox of the time — for Mr. Disraeli is unriyalled 
 as the jesting, watchful, guerilla leader of an Opposition ; and 
 Mr. Gladstone is the beau ideal of a spokesman of "Her 
 Majesty's Ministers." The Budget is not only a collection of 
 proposals ; it is a great parliamentary performance ; and when 
 we speak of Mr. Gladstone's success on Monday, we should 
 think of him not only as an author, but as an actor. Lord 
 Castlereagh used to say he wished to God the labour could be 
 divided, and he'd do the thinking, if he were allowed to hire a 
 fellow as a talker. Mr. Gladstone is the best talker of the 
 day ; after great study and care, certainly ; and to have suc- 
 ceeded in the oratory of a Budget so vast and complex as this 
 year's, is a feat which places him immeasurably above every 
 one but the Opposition leader. A Budget that took five hours 
 to talk, delivered in a musical voice — sonorous, rounded, per- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT^ NO. 11. 103 
 
 fectly modulated, exquisitely arranged, as a speech, to awake 
 and keep attention, piquing and teasing curiosity, sustained 
 and sustaining the House from the first sentence to the last — ■ 
 that is something which, as an affair of voice and will, not more 
 than half-a-dozen men in the empire could do. It is not a speech ; 
 it is not an address ; it is a statement, a great state paper 
 being oratorised ; and there can be no giving way to thoughts 
 that rush up as you go — which would be a relief — no yielding 
 to the suggestion of a cheer or an interruption ; there must be 
 the most rigid restraint over the crowding ideas — the most 
 exact acuracy in the sentences, and even in the very words 
 chosen — the most perfect balancing of parts ; more than all, there 
 must be no errors of commission — there must be no errors of 
 omission ; nothing must be put wrong, and nothing must be 
 everlooked ; and if you consider all this, and that this enormous 
 mental process, with the enormous physical difficulty of manag- 
 ing the voice, keeping on the legs, and willing the most deter- 
 mined self-possession, goes on in a House crowded in every 
 corner, representatives of an eager world — with an Opposition, 
 daring and capable, before him, and not less suggesting 
 nervousness, colleagues who envy him or tremble for him, at 
 his back, — ^you will allow that the man who gets through the 
 work and gets through it with a triumph, must be a won- 
 derful person, with an intellectual vigour you hardly sup- 
 posed humanity could attain. Yet |Mr. Gladstone took it 
 all quietly, and did it quietly, and left the House and 
 went home quietly — probably mentioning to Mrs. Glad- 
 stone, as a reason for being rather tired, that he had been say- 
 ing a '^ few words" that evening. My belief is, that had there 
 been no clock in the House he would have talked for a week — 
 Wednesday's papers announcing to a wondering empire — " Left 
 speaking" — and Thursday's beginning with, "After these pre- 
 liminary remarks, sir." 
 
 Overshadowed by the Budget, and the calculations its conse- 
 quences force on attention, the other interests of the week are 
 few. The old contrasts which I so often insist on presenting, 
 as illustrations of a system which is only to be reformed in this 
 age by laughter, are yet as visible this week as in all preceding 
 weeks of recent sessions. The House of Lords has had a couple 
 of religious debates : one on Maynooth on Monday — Lord 
 Winchilsea was telling his House that Popery was damnable, 
 and ought not to be supported by a Protestant empire, while 
 Mr. Gladstone, in the other, was proposing to get Zd. in the 
 pound out of the incomes of Irish Roman Catholic gentlemen 
 to carry on the said empire — and one, last night, on the necessity 
 of clergy reserves to keep the Canadians to respectable Chris- 
 tianity. The anxiety of the Upper House about the Protestant 
 religion was thus sufficiently shown ; and it will be observed 
 that last night the Bishop of Oxford — who spoke so eloquently 
 
104 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, KO. 11. 
 
 in favour of new bishops at the Wednesday meeting, to raise a 
 colonial Episcopal fund — was duly in his " place of peril," which 
 he defined as the proper location of apostolical representatives. 
 But take one or two of the subjects of the week to point the 
 reality and the earnestness of the Christianity of Parliament. 
 On Wednesday, some thirty or forty Scotch gentlemen joined 
 in stating to the House of Commons that Scotland was so 
 universally a drunken country that the sale of whiskey must 
 be restrained as we restrain the sale of arsenic. Every night 
 this week the Commons have received a report from a com- 
 mittee unseating members for bribery, or have appointed a 
 commission practically to disfranchise some place or another 
 for its general corruption ; so that Sir John Tyrrell, late on 
 Tuesday, — a heavy country squire, never intended by nature to 
 be up till midnight, and therefore rather bewildered at that 
 hour — blustered out savagely that if they went on this way, 
 why he'd be hanged if there'd be a borough member left. 
 Then, also, on Tuesday, the House of Lords were considering 
 the case of an Irish magistrate who had been suspended from 
 office in consequence of partisan conduct at an election ; and 
 peer after peer pointed out that "intimidation" is the uni- 
 versal electoral system in Ireland — one peer attributing this to 
 the priests, another peer mentioning the landlords, and both 
 asservations finding assurance in the evidence given before the 
 Mayo Petition Committee, where it was clearly made out that 
 the elector in Ireland is rather in a ticklish j>osition, for if he 
 votes for a Brigadier he loses his "holding," and if he votes for 
 a Derbyite, he loses his soul ; and, as one of a pastoral and 
 simple race, he prefers starvation to damnation. The Wed- 
 nesday's sitting, and the Scotch drunkenness discussion, were 
 very enlivening — such a day as the strangers haven't had for 
 many a year. Observe who was leading the discussion, as 
 framer of the bill — Mr. Forbes Mackenzie, Derbyite, whipper-in, 
 triumvir of the Carlton Club cellar, a member for Liverpool be- 
 cause he would, and Mr. Cardwell would not, vote against the 
 Maynooth gi*ant. Why does he vote against the Maynooth grant ? 
 Because he thinks Popery fatal to the souls, and temporally 
 mischievous to Irishmen. What religion would he substitute] 
 His own, which is John Knox's, and which, after ^n influence 
 of 300 years, has had such an effect that the Scotch confess 
 themselves the most drunken of God's people. Surely Mr. 
 Mackenzie should pause in attributing social and political 
 results to particular religious creeds ; should at least leave the 
 now temperate Irish alone with their Popery, if they cannot 
 have Calvinism without the "crater." But notice also the 
 way in which all the Scotch gentlemen were nonplussed in the 
 debate on their national sin by two English members. Mr. 
 Heyworth, representing the teetotal interest, said to the Scotch 
 gentlemen. Are you in earnest in your desire to reform your coun- 
 
?ARLIAMEIfTART RETROSPECT, NO. 11. 105 
 
 trymen? If so, take the pledge ; join me, and set an example 
 to the nation. The Scotch gentlemen laughed ; every one of 
 them dined out, as Scotch members should, that day, and with 
 "politics on hand," did not "leave all claretless the un- 
 moistened throttle." Then Mr. Henry Drummond — who is to 
 the feast of reason in the House what the skeleton was to 
 Egyptian debauches — said also. Are you in earnest? Then 
 why do you insist on such an observance of the Sabbath in 
 your country that, as the people are not allowed to walk in 
 the fields, or to see their friends in towns, you drive them 
 into gloomy and solitary drinking at home? The Scotch 
 gentlemen did not laugh at that ; it was a bitter truth and 
 told, and did good perhaps. But there are other odd facts to 
 notice. Mr. Mackenzie, as Carlton Club cellar triumvir, distri- 
 buted the election funds last July. What for? Why to 
 bribe some, and to make drunk all the electors. Observe, 
 then, his morality; he opens the beer casks in England, but he 
 shuts up the whiskey shops in Scotland. Accepting all his 
 facts, however — Scotland painted by a Scotchman — why does 
 he not urge on his party the expediency of leaving the colo- 
 nies without bishops a little while longer, and also leaving 
 Christianity to take care of itself in Canada, in order that 
 there may be the undivided devotion of surplus wealth (it's a 
 place of peril for surplice wealth, too) of Tories and Protes- 
 tants to complete apostolic work in Scotland ? Why issue a 
 commission to investigate social consequences of John M'Hale 
 in Ireland, and not inquire into social consequences of John 
 Knox in Scotland ? His party is going to beat the Govern- 
 ment next week in the Lords on the Jew Bill, on the ground 
 that it would unchristianize the Legislature. It is, therefore, 
 taken for granted that every honourable member is a believer 
 in the Christian faith, and that the precepts of Christianity 
 are carried out in their integrity in society and politics by 
 that House. Nothing is meant if that is not meant ; and the 
 Lords will gravely throw the bill out again on that ground 
 distinctly. Lord Derby will induce the Lords to do this ; and 
 Lord Derby will then, next day, consult about Gladstone with 
 Mr. Disraeli, his friend, and his lieutenant, who has openly 
 and in a deliberate book vindicated the Jews on the ground, 
 that if they had not caused the Great Sacrifice, noble lords 
 and honourable members would never have been redeemed. 
 That seems absurd ; but that is what the Lords are going to 
 do ; and that is what Lord Derby will do afterwards. He will 
 subsequently send for Forbes Mackenzie, and arrange what 
 money would be wanting, and what men could be relied on 
 for an election. And all the Lords who won't unchristianize 
 the Legislature will subscribe handsomely, as they did last 
 time, when one of them gave a cheque for 10,000^. Not for 
 
106 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. il. 
 
 the new bishops. Not even to enable the poor clergyman's 
 clothing society to have larger transactions in the east end of 
 Holywell Street and the west end of the New Cut. Not at all. 
 To buy the country : vary the phrase as you will, as Mr. Mac- 
 kenzie will when he speaks of it to Mr. Brown ; but that would 
 be the fact: on a general election the country is in the 
 market, and the Tory and Protestant party think it worth 
 buying. Happy country — so rich that it can find a purchaser. 
 
 And the election morale leads to the House morale. The 
 noble lords and the honourable gentlemen buy the country ; 
 they, therefore, look leniently on Sir B. Hall's conviction of 
 Mr. Stafford of having sold the navy. The House cheered 
 Sir James Graham, who excels in elaborated obsequiousness of 
 compliment, when that decidedly right honourable baronet 
 said that Mr. Stafford's "personal honour" had been unim- 
 peached. The leading journal does not agree with him: most 
 people out of the House agree with the leading journal ; but 
 mark the morale of the acquittal and the cheer. Personal 
 dishonour is in telling a lie — that is all; but there is no 
 "personal" dishonour in selling the service. Had Mr. Stafford 
 admitted a falsehood it would have been awkward; but he 
 denied that; admitting, however, that he had done all he 
 could to return Government candidates, by walking with them 
 through dockyards — and he remains an "honourable gentle- 
 man." And he voted against unchristianizing the legislature; 
 and he'll dine with the Bishop of Oxford before the month is 
 out. 
 
 The great Budget, and the immense personal success of the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, have no doubt raised the Govern- 
 ment out of the slough into which their negations were drag- 
 ging them. The free-trade Budget gives them the forward 
 and positive position which they wanted. They looked liberal 
 and full of life, facing Lord Derby and his Carlton friends last 
 night in the Lords with their Canada Bill, based on a principle 
 originating with them — absolute colonial self-government. 
 They looked well when Mr. Fitzroy brought in a Cab-Reform 
 Bill — the real sort of Reform Bill wanted by a cynical and 
 material nation. Administrative Reform is the forte of a 
 coalition, who, afraid of one another, fear to face principles; 
 and such a set of resolutions as Mr. James Wilson has put out 
 on Customs' Reform, and such bills as those of Mr. Cardwell 
 on Pilotage and Mercantile Marine, gratify inordinately that 
 vast commercial community who are so much in the lobby, 
 and have consequently so much to do with the tendencies of 
 an enlightened House, which cheerfully cheers protests against 
 class legislation. Last Saturday, after a week which had 
 known Lord John Russell's drivel about Taxes on Knowledge 
 (on Milner Gibson's motion), and which had become acquainted 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 11, 107 
 
 with Lord Palmerston's anxiety to introduce a Viennese 
 police system to the emulation of Sir Richard Mayne and Mr. 
 Whittle Harvey, the Government stood very queerly; and 
 people were helieving in the exactness of Mr. Pisraeli's hoast. 
 This present Saturday, the Government is a really strong and 
 successful and positive Government, so that Lord John is pro- 
 nounced unwise to open No, 32, Chesham Place, at all. 
 
108 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. 
 
 No. 12. 
 
 April 23. 
 The great parliamentary fact of the week is, that Lord Pal- 
 merston and Messrs. Walmsley, Cobden, and Bright, have had 
 a quarrel about Kossuth ; that Mr. Bright was very pale while 
 Lord Palmerston was getting up a laugh against his " constitu- 
 tional knowledge ;" and that two-thirds of the House of Com- 
 mons — more particularly the Tory benches — cheered a Coali- 
 tion Government, while it was rebuking Radicals for question- 
 ing the Great British propriety of introducing the continental 
 police spy system into our glorious institutions. What it all 
 means, nobody knows ; and the cheering of the House shows 
 that nobody cares ; and, ad interim^ waiting Lord Palmerston's 
 explanations, sensible people will enjoy the spectacle of the 
 presenters of the portrait of Lord Palmerston, assuring one 
 another that the "Civis Brittanicus sum" hero is an Austrian 
 tool. And the enlightened country will appreciate a Coalition 
 Government which does not even leave out Fouche. 
 
 But a Government which has got on so well lately can afford 
 to be suspected a little ; and we must keep in mind that with a 
 large party the present Government has to sustain a character 
 for c/i<?r-Aberdeenism, and that therefore the affectation of a 
 little healthy political meanness may be necessary to the 
 obtaining a power for usefulness. A little vice in a young Go- 
 vernment, as in young men, is perhaps a good sign ; and the 
 juvenile Whig is just the man to sow a surplusage of wild oats. 
 Besides, when we accept a Coalition Government, we must 
 expect only average liberalism — a "mean" result, in fact — 
 and it is our duty, consequently, to take the Cabinet policy, as 
 we take the Budget, " as a whole." There is a good deal that 
 is pleasant to balance against the police system of the perquisi- 
 tioning Palmerston. We have to ask, *' if under such and such 
 circumstances Palmerston, who at least has pretentions to sus- 
 tain, does so and so, what would Malmesbury have done V 
 Palmerston may have yielded slightly to the pressure from 
 within — Malmesbury might have had Kossuth in Vienna by 
 this time. We cannot compare the present Government with 
 the possible coming men of an abstract model Cabinet : we 
 must calculate whether they are not generally preferable to the 
 only contingent successors. Fortunately for the Coalition, it 
 is no longer in the melancholy position painted by Lord Derby, 
 when he retired from office, and when he observed, that as Lord 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. 109 
 
 Aberdeen and he generally agreed on most points, lie could not 
 understand what practicable change of policy there was going 
 to be : Lord Derby having relieved his old friend from the 
 difficulty by drawing a bold line between them — by presenting 
 a tangible distinction for the use of a public who would other- 
 wise have remained puzzled. But Lord Derby is notoriously 
 chivalric and good-natured ; and he has done wonders in 
 serving those who turned him out. His brisk opposition to the 
 Canada Clergy Reserves Bill was a complete and noble self- 
 sacrifice ; for it advanced the Government incalculably in the 
 public estimation. Lord Derby came out as the intense, 
 bigoted, irrational, hopeless Tory ; and by very force of con- 
 trast, the Ministers whom he had opposed appeared next day 
 to the public to be zealous and even rather reckless Liberals — 
 the Bishop of Exeter going so far as to suggest, with a shudder, 
 that they were Chartists — the Bishop using that sort of abuse, 
 as Dickens' shrew accuses her friend of being a turned-up-nose 
 peacock — the Bishop no more believing that Lord Aberdeen is 
 in correspondence with Cuffy than the lady in question ad- 
 mitted the possibility of tiie ornithological phenomenon she 
 referred to, but the Bishop, like the old lady, being determined 
 to generalize effectively an objection. The suspicion that Mi- 
 nisters were not friends of the Church gratified them — the 
 charge that they were Chartists flattered them — and Lord 
 Granville took notes of the points, and doubtless made up his 
 mind to make use of the accusations for the purpose of keep- 
 ing Molesworth in order at the very next Council. In the 
 same way, and for analogous reasons, we Radicals are doing 
 the work of the Coalition by hinting our suspicions that they 
 are rather Austrian in their tendencies : abuse in the House of 
 Lords for their liberalism sets them up in the Commons ; and 
 abuse in the Commons for their Toryism keeps them a majority 
 together in the Lords ; so that Duncombe is played against 
 Derby, and Walmsley against Malmesbury ; and matters go 
 on agreeably and safely in Downing Street. The results are 
 surprising : the old Protectionist Opposition had been beaten 
 up to last night (in pitched battles), and both in Lords and 
 Commons, five times: in the Lords on Monday, on the Canada 
 Clergy Reserves Bill — the fight being a regular rout ; Rupert 
 rushing as usual with his eyes shut into the midst of the 
 enemy, and there being quietly cut down, finding that not a 
 horseman had followed him, page Desart perhaps excepted : in 
 the Commons this day week, Disraeli leading up the whole host 
 in well-whipped array, on the commutation of the Debt resolu- 
 tions : in the Commons, again, on Tuesday, when Protestantism 
 was challenged to persecution by Lord Derby's intimates — Mr. 
 Kapier, Mr. Hamilton, and Lord Naas : in the Commons a 
 second time on Tuesday, when Sir John Pakington attempted 
 
110 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. 
 
 to stop the way of the Debt resolutions ; and in the Commons 
 again on Wednesday, when Sir Fitzroy Kelly, again with a 
 good whip, attempted to spoil the same set of resolutions, or, as 
 they now stand, clauses of a finance bill. The beating, observe, 
 was not only triumphant for numbers ; but because liberal 
 principles, upheld by the Government, attacked by the Opposi- 
 tion, were involved : the Duke of Newcastle talking anti-State 
 Churchism in the Lords against Lord Derby's small-minded 
 feeble factiousness; and Sir James Graham, in replying on 
 Tuesday to the Napiers and Hamiltons, and the dominant bigots 
 who hold the Castle of Dublin against the people of Ireland, 
 speaking a speech that might have been prepared by Mr. 
 Keogh — its text the right of the Catholics of Ireland to the 
 first consideration in all State questions about the education of 
 Ireland. Lord Derby gave the opportunity for these two ten- 
 tative appeals to public opinion ; and Lord Derby so destroyed 
 himself. Where are his "310," "undoubtedly the majority of 
 the House of Commons," now? Where is his "unquestionable 
 majority" in the House of Lords? His own position is the 
 contemptible one of an ally of a Bishop of Exeter on a colonial 
 question, and of a Napier and a Whiteside (crack representa- 
 tives of the old race of malignant Orangemen, for whose sake 
 so long Catholic Ireland was crushed by England) on the ques- 
 tion of Ireland. And Mr. DisraeliV position is little better 
 than that of a querulous ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 finding fidgetty fault with a financial scheme he cannot alter. 
 And the party's general position is ludicrously uneasy, digest- 
 ing the dirt eaten at Lord Derby's bidding, and trying to look 
 easy while Mr. Mackenzie or Mr. Bateson assures it that Mr. 
 Disraeli is up early and late looking out for a policy. 
 
 Taking that general view, I repeat, then. Ministers have got 
 so much strength, that they can afibrd a little suspicion, and 
 such an air of liberalism, that a little dash of the reactionary 
 Tory, at the hands of Lord Palmerston, became indispensable 
 to the equilibrium in the legislature which it is the function 
 of a coalition to preserve. The leaven of Molesworth in colo- 
 nial, and of Keogh in Irish policy, and of Osborne and Villiers 
 in commercial policy, were becoming too traceable in the general 
 mass of measures ; and a week or two of " sound Conservatism" 
 becomes decidedly advisable. Otherwise we might get Mr. 
 Miall or Mr. Lucas rising to ask Lord John Russell " whether, 
 as the Government is so strongly of opinion {teste Canada 
 Clergy Reserves) that a church can have no corporate property, 
 and that the majority of a people is entitled to decide on the 
 endowments of a church, it is the intention of Her Majesty's 
 Ministers to take the sense of Parliament on the present State 
 establishment of the Anglican Church in England and Ireland ; 
 and if not, whether it is because Her Majesty's Ministers have 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. Ill 
 
 not that confidence in the justice and considerateness of the 
 people of Great Britain, which they profess to have in the 
 people of Canada. The question would be logical ; and the 
 House would laugh ; and Ministers would look serious. They 
 must avoid such dilemmas. They must not allow publicists to 
 forget that this is a coalition age, and that a Coalition Govern- 
 ment must appreciate the age. Liberalism to-day, then ; Tory- 
 ism to-morrow : Radicalism when the Queen gives up com- 
 manding Sir Wm. Moles worth to dine with her — for how can a 
 man talk Benthamism, and then face a Queen who will read all 
 the papers ? Couldn't be done, sir ; and that's well understood 
 in conscious tap-rooms in the Borough. The three nights' dis- 
 cussion on the Budget has been not a debate, but a levee — a 
 reception by Mr. Gladstone. About thirty or forty men have 
 spoken, and not three have condemned. Member after member 
 has gone up smiling to the august and complacent Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, oratorically kissed the hand which had gone 
 so deep into the cornucopia which he keeps in his red box, and 
 been rewarded with the nod which, when it comes from an 
 official to an " independent" memoer is proverbially suflScing. 
 Lord John may not have liked all that homage to his right 
 honourable friend : however rejoicing that the Government had 
 made a hit, he would have liked — jealous of his dignity as un- 
 departmented leader — a man with a mission not addressed and 
 lying in Downing Street " till called for" — that the acknow- 
 ledgments should have been general to the Cabinet, and not so 
 distinctly personal and grateful to an individual who, before 
 his success, suspected that Lord John Russell, as amateur pilot, 
 was de trop in a calm, among a crew coalesced on the compre- 
 hensive basis of administrative ability. Sir C. Wood may not 
 have liked the overwhelming contrasts candidly thrust on his 
 attention between this Budget and his beggars' wallets. The 
 Whigs, generally, are not pleased that the coup, on which all 
 depended, should have been made by the Peelite portion of the 
 Ministry, and that Mr. Gladstone himself should so prominently 
 present the Cabinet as taking up the work of Sir Robert Peel 
 — a connexion in following which the Whig element and inter- 
 regnum between Peel in 1842, and Gladstone in 1853, are likely 
 to be overlooked. But Mr. Gladstone is revelling in his own 
 proper fame ; talks exultingly — he treated poor Pakington, 
 on Tuesday, as Pakington would have treated, say Chis- 
 holm Anstey — and, generally, is in such superb good humour, 
 that he is half inclined to add a million or two of his private 
 fortune to swell the surplus, and, at any rate, is supposed to be 
 ready to get rid of all the grumbling by altering the licences 
 grievance, and by giving the Radicals what they want about the 
 newspaper taxes. That is the least concession he could make for 
 so much complimenting as he has been the recipient of since the 
 
112 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. 
 
 beginning of this week ; and he will increase the amount of the 
 gift, by the good grace with which he will confess an error. 
 Apelles consented to alter the shoe of the Venus. In such a 
 beauty of a Budget, little defects may be alloAved by a con- 
 summate artist. But a bad Budget gives good debates ; a good 
 Budget has entailed on a dull public unenlivening discussions. 
 The monotonous admiration of the House has been like the 
 invariable Oh — h — h's of the crowd, wondering at the Vauxhall 
 pyrotechnic tableaux ; and Burkes dittoing one another, make 
 the strangers' galleries unexciting. The certain success of the 
 Budget was so accurately foreseen, that a heavy debate was 
 made still heavier, by the absence of the chances of a struggle ; 
 and, up to this moment, no man of great mark has spoken. 
 Even among the small men, there was little competition for 
 the maltreating of the Speaker's eye ; and the House has con- 
 sisted only of the said few small men, who would speak, and 
 who were obliged to wait listening to one another, till their 
 turns came round. This is an observable Parliamentary maxim 
 — when a Government is safe, the smoking-room fills ; when a 
 Budget has only to be puffed, its details are gone into over a 
 cigar. The influence of the House of Commons' smoking- 
 room upon British history, has never been sufficiently recog- 
 nised, and must be discussed some day. It is the green 
 room of the Legislative stage ; and this week, its attrac- 
 tiveness, as a mart for gossiping, appears to have kept the 
 House empty. (Constituents should look to this, in Sir C. 
 Barry's bills — the smoking-room is the most luxuriant in the 
 whole building.) Sir Edward Lytton had an audience at the 
 start of the debate — getting a crowd for the very reasons which 
 filled Drury Lane, to see Edmund Kean, as harlequin ; for who 
 is not curious to see the artistic novelist as the farmer's 
 friend? Ernest Maltravers bringing himself down to the Sir 
 John Tyrrel level — Pelham affecting the Henley ? But Sir 
 Edward does it well ; he is awfully dull, and proses so well 
 that one really believes he was mistaken in that estimate 
 of himself which he gave in the preface to "Arthur." He 
 makes some cad say to the broken-down roue, in the Cider 
 Cellars' scene in "Pelham," — "Well, it's an odd history; and 
 I 'd never have thought you'd been a gentleman." On Monday, 
 nobody would have thought Sir Edward had come from the 
 clever classes into the country cjentlemen set ; and you may, 
 therefore, imagine his success. The Protectionists cheered him 
 heartily, and began to wonder if he might not do nearly as 
 well as Pakington for a leader. And, in its way, that was a 
 House of Commons triumph, no doubt ; and you would have 
 thought it a great one, to see the air of Maltravers as he went 
 up to the stenographers, anxiously hoping that they had heard 
 him well ! Yet there was something wanting in the triumph ; 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. 113 
 
 for a good speech for a farmer's friend is hardly a good speech 
 for the author of England and the English', and the only 
 tolerable matter was, at any rate, spoiled by the intolerable 
 manner. Sir Edward appears to have no musical ear, and his 
 sentences rise and fall about in an unmodulated way, that 
 teases and perplexes, all the more that he is so slow and 
 straggling ; and what chiefly does not please in him is, that it 
 is so evident the eye is turned inwards — that he is not ad- 
 dressing the House, but speaking a prepared speech, which he 
 thinks wonderfully profound, and desires to make impressive — 
 a consideration which the collective House never appreciates. 
 Listen to him they did, for they listen to most openers of a 
 debate ; and there was curiosity to see a clever man in a new 
 position ; but how dead the real failure was, may be inferred 
 from the fact that Sir Edward gave no text or tone to the 
 debate, that he produced no impression out of doors, and that 
 when his voice ceased his speech was dead, no reference of any 
 consequence being made to it in the rest of the discussion, and 
 certainly no one specifically answering it. Sir Edward, of 
 course, can become a leading man in the House of Commons, 
 if he likes ; if he studies it, and consults its tastes and neces- 
 sities — as he did not when there ten years ago, and as he has 
 not done since returned last — he can command and control it 
 equally with other clever men with a capacity to understand 
 mankind; but the very freshest youth in the place has not 
 more to learn, to fit himself for that assembly, than Sir Edward 
 has to unlearn. First of all, the unreality of his point of view 
 — talking talk which, however good, is not quite certain to 
 tell; and in the next place, the utter artificiality of his man- 
 ner. The House will not be spoken at : it will be talked to. 
 
 There are men, however, who are unable, whatever their 
 practice, to get the House of Commons knack. Read the 
 speech of Mr. Cobden, who re-opened the debate on Thursday, 
 and you will see how admirable is its matter and its arrange- 
 ment ; one of those crystal clear speeches which are peculiar to 
 himself ; and yet that speech did not tell on the House, and for 
 the simple reason that it was not addressed to the House, but 
 to the West Riding. Mr. Cobden is the agitator, even in 
 presence of Mr. Speaker, and always looks and talks like a 
 representative of the pressure from without — the thin end of 
 the celebrated wedge in bodily. Mr. Cobden has spoken 
 twenty times per session ever since 1841, and he has not yet a 
 notion how to catch the ear of the audience best worth having 
 of all the audiences in the world. Beyond the walls he sees 
 and hears a middle-class meeting ; and he talks at that with a 
 great earnestness and avast command of his subject, which get 
 the intermediary attention — but with a carelessness for the 
 opinions and feelings he is in presence of that makes him a 
 
 I 
 
114 PAHLIAMENTART RETROSPECT, IfO. 12. 
 
 decidedly unpopular man at Westminster. See how he in- 
 sulted the Irish Liberal members on Thursday — an insult 
 which Serjeant Shee forcibly retorted for them — upon no pro- 
 vocation whatever, and merely from a sensation that the 
 "point" would have told capitally in a free-trade hall in 
 England. Take, as a further comfort for Sir Edward Bulwer, 
 Mr. Moore's speech last night. Mr. Moore, also, will not con- 
 sult House of Commons peculiarities, and gets no real position 
 in consequence. A clever man, full of thought and very fluent, 
 he tvill say what he thinks, in the way it came on to the paper 
 with which he prepared himself; and the result is smart decla- 
 mation in a harsh Mayo brogue, which can have no visible 
 effect on men or parties — which is mere mental enjoyment of 
 the orator's — and to which nobody pays any attention; cer- 
 tainly not the English members, who fancy Moore is doing 
 what Cobden does, talking to out of doors; whereas G. H. 
 Moore is earnestly, rapturously, and contentedly, talking to 
 himself. Then there is a third instance worth noticing, that 
 of Sir Francis Baring, who made a speech on Thursday which 
 excited great talk, consisting for the most part of angry con- 
 demnation. Sir Francis, a Whig of established crotchettiness, 
 was First Admiralty Lord under the late Government, was 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Melbourne, and is 
 supposed to possess "administrative ability," which may be 
 defined as a habit of early rising, bringing you to your office 
 at nine, agreeing with your clerks in everything, being in the 
 House precisely at half- past four p.m., being never well dressed, 
 and always able to bully independent members when they hap- 
 pen to catch your clerks in a mess. Now Sir Francis, on 
 Thursday, was worse than Cobden, worse than Moore ; he did 
 not talk to meetings nor to Lady Baring, but he made a speech 
 for the purpose of causing some malicious pleasure to about 
 six personages, they being the statesmen left out of the coali- 
 tion, — Earl Grey, Sir George Grey, Labouchere, Goulburn, and 
 some few more : .who don't agree with you that the coalition 
 can get on, and who think that it is great nonsense to be 
 praising the Budget in this way, — who allow that Gladstone 
 is rather clever, but then he 's copied my idea about, &c. &c. ; 
 and who were delighted at Sir Francis's moral courage (I notice 
 that your crack honest and moral-courage men have always 
 bad expressions in their face and ill-condition in their voices) 
 in telling Gladstone that he had blundered about Ireland. 
 The statesmen left out, — Sir George, and Labouchere, and 
 Goulburn, present, did not cheer, but they were rewarded by 
 Hayter s uneasiness, Lord John's gloom, and Mr. Glad- 
 stone's extra hilarity ; and they thought more meanly than 
 ever of the Irish members who cheered, and who, poor inno- 
 cents, thought Sir Francis was trying to please them — as if Sir 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. 115 
 
 Francis cared one straw for Ireland. But then the House saw 
 through all this, detected the spite of a disappointed man, and 
 arranged to enjoy the next moral-courage speaker who should 
 tell the secret. Who was Mr. Gardwell. A gentleman never 
 hesitating at ill-natured things, and not a Whig associate, and 
 who insinuated a telling reply to the sneering assailant ; adding 
 an assault on Mr. Moore, which was less well taken ; and, in 
 fact, accepting what appeared an inevitable necessity, and 
 turning the whole of the further talk for the night into an 
 Irish debate — on the old question, under a new aspect, of 
 justice to Ireland — under which infliction no opposition was 
 made to the further adjournment of the division until Mon- 
 day, throughout the whole of last evening, though the 
 attendance was fuller than before, the speaking was tame, the 
 Protectionists launching no heavier orator than Mr. Henley ; 
 and Government loosing no more responsible talker than the 
 Mr. Cardwell aforesaid — smart and accurate on facts before 
 him, and useful to be thrown out in a debate as a Government 
 picquet ; the Independent interest proffering no more important 
 person than Mr. Cairns — a fluent Chancery barrister, who talked 
 for an Irish constituency, and by personal allusions, rapid 
 attacks on always assailable Sir Charles Wood (who had spoken 
 on the preceding day), point being given to flimsy material by 
 the satisfied and easy air of the speaker: — this gentleman-— 
 who was elaborately got up, dressed for the occasion as a 
 dandy orator, to produce an effect — did manage to get up 
 running cheers, and to sit down in a roar of Protectionist 
 applause, completing a "hit" in the House. But this was at 
 midnight, when seats were full, in readiness for the possibility 
 of Disraeli and division. Up to the last half-hour of Mr. 
 Cairns, the House was thin, and teasingly inattentive ; a pro- 
 menade and a club lounge, rather than a legislative assembly ; 
 the fact being, that up to ten, members were as much in the 
 Lords, watching the Jew Bill debate, as in their own place ; 
 and that from ten to eleven they could do nothing but buzz in 
 and out their wonder and their comment upon the Government 
 defeat. Looking down from the galleries at about ten, you could 
 see there was some sensation outside, utterly disconnected 
 from the orator inside, who was hammering away about diffe- 
 rentiation, and lifting his voice over all the insulting hum and 
 bustle to the reporters. There was news brought in by 
 honourable newsmongers in hot haste, whispered about at the 
 bar, and then radiated right and left, and up and down the 
 House. Lord John and Mr. Disraeli had their eyes on the 
 news at the one moment ; they got at it at about the same 
 moment. Lord John knew that his colleague, Rothschild, had 
 been rejected again by the Peers ; and Lord John drew his hat 
 over his head, tightened his arms round his chest, and talked 
 
 I 2 
 
11(5 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. 
 
 reservedly with Graham. Mr. Disraeli, then supposed to be 
 about to rise at eleven, and in his capacity as leader of the 
 country gentlemen and Protestant opposition — knew that his 
 race and religion had received a new insult from the party 
 which he was serving — simply because the conscientious House 
 of Lords would not unchristianize the House of Commons. 
 Was it fancy 1 But Mr. Disraeli did 7iot appear to catch Lord 
 John's eye for the rest of the night. 
 
 In the hurry, it was concluded that Government was da- 
 maged by the defeat ; but really, the coalition had got a victory, 
 as on the Canada Clergy Reserves Bill, because new mate- 
 rial was thus supplied to them for taking airs as civil and 
 religious liberty champions. They would have preferred win- 
 ning ; but the next best thing was that Lord Derby should 
 win, since he would win everything hut honour. Personally, 
 Lord Aberdeen cannot regret the debate. It was the first 
 opportunity he had had of manifesting the later enlarged 
 liberalism of his nature ; and his bold declaration of regret 
 for past intolerance was a noble thing in the old man, and 
 pleasant hearing for the droves of Jew gentlemen who were 
 packed in the strangers' gallery, staring at the peeresses, and 
 admiring the disinterestedness of the Peers in charging nothing 
 at the doors for admission. Ministers have also consolation in 
 knowing that all the good speaking was on their side ; and all 
 rational men have reason to rejoice that Archbishop Whately 
 so astounded the right reverend bench by meeting the charge, 
 about unchristianizing the Legislature with the direct, candid 
 insinuation — which no one had yet made in any of these debates 
 — " Your House of Commons is not Christian now — one half of 
 them are Deists." What was to be said after that ? Nothing ; 
 and I believe that startling truth petrified at least a dozen in- 
 tending Christian orators, and brought the debate to an abrupt 
 and early close. Fancy Dr. Johnson an Archbishop, and in a 
 debate, and saying that, and you can get an exact notion of 
 how Dr. Whately looked and said it — rolling about in a bilious 
 passion — and utterly indifferent to the horror he was raising 
 behind him among the scrupulous shepherds, shocked at the 
 licence assumed by the huge and intellectual vulgarian who 
 was staggering about the table and suggesting the most over- 
 whelming logic, based on the most cruel admissions of consti- 
 tutional shams. Such a saying as Dr. Whately's would have 
 evoked a twenty minutes' roar and cheers in the Commons : in 
 the Lords there was solemn silence — they didn't know there 
 how to manage an indiscretion of this sort. They had enjoyed 
 previously the jolly and loosely-Christian suggestiveness of the 
 wild Albemarle, who played round his subject, and cracked 
 good jokes, and conciliated the Puritanical Peers, by admitting 
 that he was in favour of the principle and all that sort of thing, 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. 117 
 
 but that he really was as averse as Falstaff to contiguity with 
 the Ebrew Jew. This was talk the ladies liked — those ladies 
 who always go to the Lords on no-opera nights — who add the 
 rustle of silk to the solemnities of politics ; who chatter to one 
 another, and nod and beck amusingly and knowingly to their 
 lords in the den below, and who have that influence on the 
 oratory which private boxes have on the acting at the theatre 
 above half-price. Lord Shaftesbury, fanatically solemn, they 
 said, no doubt, was very impressive. The Bishop of Salisbury, 
 inanely twaddling, they could not but regard as gentlemanly 
 — the least a bishop could be — and Lord Darnley, who made a 
 maiden speech, and broke down in his idiotic bigotry in a way 
 to suggest that out of his earldom he would have a difficulty 
 in earning his livelihood, except on the recommendation of 
 Lord Shaftesbury to the communistic Blacking Brigade, they 
 could not but conclude to be diffident ; and Lord Albemarle, 
 as mentioned, they giggled at in a way to delight and inspire 
 into tedious stupidity that plethoric peer. All these lords had 
 talked, not at their lordships, but, in the first place, at the 
 bishops ; and in the next place, at the ladies ; going in at once 
 for Christianity and fashion — a place in heaven and a pleasant 
 reputation in May Fair. But Lord Brougham, who not only 
 talked to the ladies, but did not condescend to look at the lords, 
 and who would as soon touch a bishop as a Manchester man — 
 what could the peeresses have thought of Lord Brougham] 
 First, of his dress — a sort of Cannes blouse — surmounted by a 
 woman's boa ; next, of his voice — a raucous yell ; of his ges- 
 ture, maniacal banging of the table ? He was attempting to 
 fascinate the side galleries ; he terrified them, so that the pink 
 bonnets were thinned long before he had done. Lord Brougham 
 has been seen in many phases before ; but so startling, so be- 
 wildering was he last night, that one began to think that the 
 Lords were having their turn of a lunatic, even less manageable 
 than O'Connor was — with a decidedly louder voice, and more 
 method. What with Whately, Albemarle, and Brougham, 
 against him, and on his own side nobody better than a Bishop ^ 
 of Salisbury and a foundered young Earl, the debate may have ' 
 appeared to Lord Derby, as well as to Lord Lyndhurst, both of 
 whom had been calculated upon, too ludicrous, and too trivial, 
 and too troublesome for their control. At any rate, they 
 allowed the House to rush from Brougham to a division. Their 
 silence in the debate, and the rumours current for the few days 
 beforehand, to the efiect that they intended changing their 
 votes, and turning Liberals, suggest a conspiracy to entrap 
 Ministers : and this is certain — that a Whig Minister said posi- 
 tively at eight o'clock, that the Government was safe to win. 
 The vote that Lord Stanley gave for the bill in the Commons, 
 implies that Lord Derby was not indisposed to a decent incon- 
 
118 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 12. 
 
 sisteney; but it may be, that he felt the Government was 
 getting on too well, and that a little check to them was neces- 
 sary to restore his own temper. So Lord Derby passed the word 
 for bigotry, and will attend St. James's Church to-morrow with 
 a clear conseience. And he and Mr. Disraeli will dine together 
 in the evening as usual ; and will calculate what is best to be; 
 doji^ -witb an enJightened country. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, XO, 13. 119 
 
 No. 13. 
 
 May 7. 
 Every house has its skeleton. The House of Commons has 
 two — Messrs Drummond and DuiFy : and they have somewhat 
 affected the feast of reason at Westminster during the week. 
 
 It is a week to be memorable in the history of representative 
 institutions. The session is a session of one subject : the dead 
 failure of the Reform Bill — the startling sham of the Consti- 
 tution : and this week sees the climax of the hideous series of 
 revolutions. The exposures have been in formal and symmetrical 
 succession. The Election Committees led up to the trial of 
 Stafford — is there no painter equal to the perception that Lord 
 Derby's agent is as good a subject as Charles's Strafford ? — 
 and the trial of Stafford led up to Mr. Drummond's speech on 
 Tuesday — and Mr. Drummond's speech was the suggestion of 
 Mr. Duffy's speech on Thursday. A habit was growing up 
 among public men of facing the facts ; and is it surprising that 
 Mr. Duffy, an "inexperienced member," as Lord Palmerstou 
 benevolently observed, should have got unconsciously in the 
 way of telling the truth of the political scamps honoured by 
 the constituencies of his enlightened country ? How is it, then, 
 that notwithstanding the House has been a confessional since 
 Christmas, there was this sudden revulsion on Thursday, and 
 that, at eleven o'clock on Thursday night, the Speaker was 
 under the necessity of trying to remember the precedents, from 
 Wilkes downwards, of "expulsion ?" On Tuesday, the House 
 chuckled over Mr. Drummond, who called it a Bazaar of places, 
 and emphatically pronounced every forensic M.P. a place- 
 hunter, — who also went up to the House of Lords and com- 
 pared the Ministerial benches there to a draper's counter, over 
 which ribbons were sold and conscience given in exchange. 
 Why was Mr. Drummond laughed with ? and Mr. Duffy, who 
 hinted at only half-a-dozen cases of corruption, yelled at 1 The 
 reason appears to be this : that Mr. Drummond talked like a 
 man of the world, as "one of us," and acknowledged the ne- 
 cessity of corruption in this leading nation of Europe : and 
 that Mr. Duffy talked like an indignant purist, who was ear- 
 nestly scornful of Mr. Drummond's inevitable scamps. The 
 House will endure its weakness being hinted at by one of the 
 club who effects no superiority; but — appearances must be 
 kept up — they even thought Drummond indiscreet with a nest 
 worth preservation, and they would not endure a moralist who 
 
120 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 13. 
 
 will not amalgamate with the cluh — who thinks of a country 
 behind him ; and who will go on stupidly believing in the po- 
 litical honesty of needy Irish barristers. Observe that the 
 House does not acknowledge that because its origin is rotten 
 and villanous, it is therefore itself impure : the theory to be 
 sustained is that constituencies are bought always, but never 
 sold. The country, it admits — cheering Yernon Smith and 
 Labouchere — is an unworthy and dishonest country ; but the 
 six hundred and fifty-four, who purchase the Government of 
 their countrymen, are all honourable men, patriotic (it is their 
 own, their native, land, after all), and pure to that extent that 
 evenMr. Murroughis to be presented to the public gaze as rather a 
 Bayard than otherwise. Mr. StaiFord had sold Britannia, no doubt 
 concluding that a Tory could rule the seas as straight as a Whig ; 
 but Mr. Stafford's personal honour was "unimpeached." What 
 could we do without these theories 1 Admit all the facts, and 
 what would become of this highly-civilised people ? Colonel 
 Dickson thinks that every man goes to Parliament for an 
 " object," but if every man did not insist that his sole aim was 
 to make mankind happier and better, how could mankind be 
 managed ] You don't suppose British citizens would be so 
 proud of self-government, and the right to put what price they 
 like on their franchises, if the honourable candidate on pre- 
 senting himself was to say, " Being a member of the aristo- 
 cracy, I must belong to the best club in London, will you oblige 
 me 1" Or, " Being in the navy, I want a ship or a squadron — 
 will you give me the means of getting at the Admiralty, and 
 screwing it out of that infernal First Lord who snubs me now V* 
 Or, "Being a barrister, liking Cockburn's society, and con- 
 sequently never reading law, and consequently not making a 
 thousand a year, I should like some of the pleasant places in 
 my profession. I am of seven years' standing — pray help a 
 rising man." Or, "Being a British merchant, with a good 
 fortune, and nothing to do, I'd like to be able to awe my wife and 
 Snooks of the city — reward industry, and give me a seat." All 
 this is to be said to one another in the club ; but the exoteric 
 faith of the multitude must be looked after, and Duffy must 
 be put down. Concede that we have not progressed since 
 Walpole's days, and the constitution would break down. And 
 look at the state of continental Europe, sir, since 1848 — do you 
 want this glorious country to be brought to anarchy ? W ould 
 you unchristianize us by admitting a Jew 1 asks Mr. Walpole 
 in the hearing of Mr. Disraeli, with his eye on Mr. Ricardo : 
 and we laugh outside : but that laugh must not be sanctioned 
 inside. A Marquis of Waterford and a Marquis of Salisbury 
 vote against unchristianizing the Legislature : but who dare 
 test the right of such men to give such votes ? Mr. Crocodile, 
 the rising barrister, comes from the Reform Club, where he 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 13. 121 
 
 has discussed over claret with Cockburn, the chances about 
 that 200^. a year at that board, or about that compact judge- 
 ship at Bombay, and with his fine voice and practised style, 
 he produces a great effect, — you can hear the ladies in their 
 cage, exclaim, " What a beautiful speaker ! " when he points 
 out that the borough of Vendor ought to have a commission 
 (he could tell Hayter just the men for the commissioners) to 
 inquire into the villany of one Tomkins, whose wife having 
 received a threat from the landlord about those arrears, found 
 10^. in her purse on the nomination day. The constituency of 
 this country, says Vernon Smith, is utterly depraved ; and 
 then Vernon Smith walks home wondering why the deuce he 
 was forgotten in the coalition, and how he could manage to 
 hurry Sidney Herbert into the Peerage 1 The idea, said Mr. 
 Fitzgerald, of my being under any prospective obligation to 
 the Government ! Mr. Fitzgerald gives up a good practice at 
 the bar, simply to oblige his countrymen ; and Mr. F. Scully is 
 there, in his place, night after night, ruining that narrow 
 chest of his, and trying to take an interest in a subject of 
 which he has not the dreariest comprehension, simply because 
 he loves Tipperary ; and that devotion is all the more noble, 
 that Tipperary has given him a broad hint that his resig- 
 nation would be very acceptable. The idea, again, as Lord 
 John RusseJl hinted last night, of my honourable and learned 
 friend, Mr. Keogh, thinking of the salary attached to his office. 
 Insulting proposition ! But perhaps, as being a Minister 
 without office. Lord John can affect indignation at the notion 
 of meaning anything but patriotism — his indignation on 
 Thursday boiling over to that extent, that one instinctively 
 looked to see if Lord Charles Russell, with all the dignity of 
 2500^. a year, was going to rush at Mr. Duffy. Yes ; we have 
 improved since the days of Walpole. Lord John Russell, 
 volunteer statesman, leads that pure assembly for nothing. Mr. 
 Gladstone is sorry that he should be so disinterested : but it is 
 a corrupt age, and we want men to go in front — as veneer- 
 statesmen. Properly considered, Lord John helps appearances 
 wonderfully — Que r inutile est beau ! 
 
 The scene of Thursday night was something worth noting 
 and remembering. The row in 1846, between Peel and Disraeli, 
 when Peel said, " That is not true," was very good indeed; but, 
 then, Disraeli was being hounded on by an enraged faction, 
 party spirit ran fiercely high, and there was some solemnity 
 that made one look grave while the savagery was in progress. 
 But on Thursday, for the first hour, it was sheer fun : we have 
 got into careless times ; and it was late, when the House was 
 full of dined white waistcoats and red faces ; and those insulted 
 were not a class much cared for, while the insulter was not 
 personally known to twenty men there. The House gave 
 
122 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 13. 
 
 itself up to the fracas with a thorough sense of enjoyment — 
 utterly reckless of the agony to individuals, and utterly indif- 
 ferent, in the thoughtlessness of the moment, to the results on 
 its own reputation. It shammed the virtuous indignation with 
 gTeat zest, and took for granted, while yelling and gesticulat- 
 ing, that the pale and "green" Mr. Duffy, after providing a 
 proper supply of fun, would duly be bullied into peccavi. 
 Earnest and serious it got at the last, when the dogged victim 
 would palpably push the matter to extremity ; for even the 
 dined were cunning enough to remember that the House of 
 Commons of this glorious constitution could not very well 
 afford the expose just now; but until this sort of sensation 
 supervened, honourable gentlemen revelled in the rumpus 
 just like gallery gods in an 0. P. scrimmage. The House of 
 Commons is the best place in the world for confusion — for 
 a row. Far better than a public meeting: for there it is 
 only a column — the " body" of the meeting — rushing at a fort 
 — the platform. The platform sees a long drawn-out row imme- 
 diately before it, and can manage it by managing the foremost 
 assaulters. But the House of Commons has two sides: roars 
 can be exchanged ; men can be marked out ; eye is upon eye ; 
 and there may be a gesticulating melee of hand to hand com- 
 bats. And a public meeting cannot venture on such shouts as 
 members of the House of Commons. Catcalls were introduced 
 for the first time on Thursday, since 1832 ; fists were shaken at 
 faces for the first time in Commons history ; and at one moment 
 J. Ball and V. Scully, who rose at the same time to be cloud- 
 compellers of the tempest, were wrestling for the precedence 
 — V. Scully, as the lighter weight, going down ignominiously 
 in a hideous screech of universal laughter. A stenographic 
 corps of the "Fonetic Nuz" might have taken the cries — ordi- 
 nary reporting was useless. The dined, who had got in in the 
 middle of the crowded hubbub, were obliged to skulk to back 
 benches, and into the galleries; and they set to, one after 
 another, imprompting a Donnybrook. And it should be under- 
 stood that the dined were only the outer chorus. Grave, 
 steady, sober men were fuming and screaming, frantically 
 cheering Russell, madly putting down Lucas, and actually 
 yelling at Duffy. That "intelligent foreigner," with whom we 
 so often illustrate our home pictures, could only have come to 
 one conclusion from such a scene — that the House was drunk, 
 and that they were ordering Mr. Chairman Bouverie to lie on 
 the table. In the end, when it got reasonable, and knew, by 
 Serjeant Shoe's speech, that it had blundered, it behaved justly 
 in adjourning the whole discussion; for it is the fairest as- 
 sembly in the world, full of manliness; but for an hour the 
 collective conduct of the House was scandalous; at once ex- 
 ceeding its sham of indignation and forgetting decency in its 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 13. 123 
 
 laughter. At one moment anything insulting to Duffy would 
 have been cheered — the most frightful personalities would 
 have been welcomed, — and, though it repented the blackguard- 
 ism, when Duffy remonstrated, it did cheer Mr. , who was 
 
 in a white waistcoat, when he was mean enough and cowardly 
 enough to attempt a kick at a "down" man, by his declara- 
 tion of opinion, that because he would not apologise, Mr. Duffy 
 was a — a — " I don't wish (with a lurch) to use an improper 
 expression (grasping the rail of his seat) but not a — a — gen- 
 nemelan." The House would have it that Duffy had no 
 grounds for his charge; and because he would not retract, 
 they would have it that he wanted manliness — as if ^the 
 greater pluck were not in bearding all the sham. Lord John 
 Russell was undoubtedly responsible for the scene, and be- 
 haved badly. How Lord John Russell has degenerated — how 
 assiduously he is practising mildness for the House of Lords, 
 where he is soon to be called, let us hope — was evidenced early 
 in the evening, by his speech on Kossuth, condemning Kossuth 
 because he would conspire, and not twirl his thumbs in the 
 Bays water Hospitium : and how completely incapable he now 
 is of " leading" a great body likie the Commons, he sufficiently 
 showed in his leaving the row to continue and complicate 
 itself during two hours of shouts and screams, and in himself 
 adopting the tone of insult to Mr. Duffy, who, as Mr. Disraeli, 
 more cool and more vigorous, said, was only exercising his 
 highest right as a member by arraigning the corruption of a 
 Government. Lord John, an elbow in each hand, — his favourite 
 attitude on great occasions, as when he is on " civil and reli- 
 gious liberty," — lifted the smallest of human voices to catch 
 the cheers that were waiting on him — ardent cheers, such as 
 Lord John is not used to, — and this great statesman, not, just 
 at present, the most masculine of men, denounced Mr. Duffy's 
 want of manliness. And how the bullying House, insisting on 
 its purity, did thunder applause of that moral lecture ! Lord 
 Palmerston, in the same way, assumed Mr. Duffy to be in a 
 mess, and advised him, as Mentor would talk to Telemachus, 
 if Telemachus had been a member, and had been disorderly j 
 and the House roared at that too, — thinking Palmerston sa- 
 gacious and diplomatic, and considering Duffy d — d if he would 
 not fall into the trap. The impertinence of the fellow ! — why 
 would he not please them? They could not even laugh at 
 him: he behaved faultlessly, with miraculous self-possession: 
 and it was fine to observe that, after all, the mass of members 
 would not allow him to be crushed by the furious few whom 
 he had summoned up for judgment. It was a tellingly try- 
 ing thing for his nerves when shown the door: for there 
 was something ludicrous in that episode : but he escaped 
 a jeer even then — he walked from his place as sedately and 
 
124 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 13. 
 
 strollingly as if he had just presented a petition, as if no- 
 body was looking at him. Brave men are always quiet men ; 
 and he was subdued, but solemnly obstinate ; and that de- 
 meanour had its effect, in the end. Who could have gone 
 through such a scene, and not blundered? You, Jones, — 
 fancy yourself the centre of twelve hundred eyes, and the 
 focus of six hundred voices, — would you not have given in 
 ^nd given way ? But this young Member, on Thursday, did 
 not commit a single blunder (that is, after the first indis- 
 cretion of provoking such an affair at all) ; and there must 
 be elements of greatness in the man who, with few advan- 
 tages and many disadvantages, could escape from such an 
 auto da fe. His withdrawing was a great piece of good for- 
 tune ; the tide turned for an absent man ; and members were 
 at once stunned by the gallant defensive speech made by 
 Serjeant Shee for his friend, and softened by his appeal to 
 their sympathies. He is a fine, vigorous, vulgar fellow, that 
 Serjeant Shee ; and the brain and the manhood he evinced in 
 his fifteen minutes talk should have shamed the melodramatic 
 Russell. He ended the row, and gave a turn to the view of 
 the House, which put Mr. Duffy in a steady position for his 
 appearance next day. 
 
 It was the morning after : a headache in the aspect of the 
 again thronged and expectant House — repentance on the Trea- 
 sury benches — a sense of shame universal. In effect, the result 
 was that Lord John Russell confessed to have been too virtu- 
 ously hasty ; that the House, in agreeing to Lord John's "least 
 said soonest mended" proposition to pass to business, owned to 
 have been grossly wrong ; and that Mr. Duffy, the inexperienced 
 man everybody had been advising or insulting the night before 
 — stuck to his point, and became a hero for ever in Ireland. 
 He reiterated his charges, generalising the meaning, and offered 
 to particularise individuals, if it was wished; and he gave his 
 clear-headed account of the point at issue in so modest but so 
 firm a way, that there was no longer a chance of doubting 
 the correctness of his accusation — he convinced in advance. 
 " Well," said Lord John, elbows in hands again, "if you only 
 mean that certain Irish members of this Government forswore 
 themselves in taking office with me, you only say what is matter 
 of argument, and let us argue it in due opportunity." There 
 was a soda- watery cheer. Mr. J. Ball, with a delirium tremens host 
 of Irish members around him, agreed with Lord John, if Mr. 
 Duffy only referred to the deserters from the Brigade to the 
 Coalition Ministry, why that was not his business, nor the busi- 
 ness of his friends (mournful, nervous "hear, bear's"); and he 
 would leave the reply to the circumscribed charge to those 
 whom it concerned. " Hear, hear," from everybody. But the 
 same thought occurred at the same time to everybody, and 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 13. 125 
 
 every eye was turned on the full, healthy, reckless face of a 
 stout little man on the Treasury benches, noted as an intellec- 
 tual sparrer. As Lord John and as Mr. Ball turned the mat- 
 ter, Mr. Keogh was placed in the dock as a man accused of 
 political corruption. But Mr. Keogh sat still. The House 
 understood it all, broke up laughing, and radiated away to 
 dinner, to wonder with one another what the country would 
 think of it all; what Duffy's case really was; and whether 
 Hayter had frightened Lord John not to push the difficulty 
 into a committee-room. Lord John went out and chatted with 
 Lord Clarendon, perhaps, about that young rebel journalist 
 they had tried so hard, in '48, to get out to Van Diemen's Land, 
 and who was now a power in his " place" — talking his sanguine 
 theories and foolish indignation, and utterly upsetting all the 
 old routine arrangements by which Irish members have so long 
 been kept as Treasury-runners, and the scoffs of good society. 
 Yet Lord John had still kept up appearances with his usual 
 perseverance ; and may to-day, out at Richmond, bask in the 
 consciousness that he has done his duty during the week to 
 the Constitution. His vote on Tuesday for the prosecution of 
 Sir F. Smith, he followed up last night by a notice of a Bill to 
 disqualify all Government employes in dockyards for the fran- 
 chise ; and the enlightened Ministerial benches welcomed that 
 notice with a sort of hear, hear, which meant — Bravo — Here's 
 a pure Minister — Mark that, you corrupt Tory gentlemen! 
 And no doubt Lord John is behaving with great moral courage : 
 his countrymen with Government patronage cannot be trusted, 
 so he disfranchises them. There 's a fine moral in the notice 
 for a highly-civilised people ; but is it not odd that it should 
 be applied by the great "Reformer"? A Reform Bill is due: 
 and Lord John brings in a measure of disfranchisement! If 
 in dockyards, because the men can't be honest, why not in 
 boroughs, where they don't choose to be 1 The Radicals were 
 delighted with the notice last night, but the principle is a new 
 one ; and if they establish a precedent, they can hardly be dis- 
 appointed when Lord John rises, April 1, 1854, elbows in his 
 hands, to complete the great work of his life, and says, " Sir, 
 the period has now arrived when we may put the corner-stone 
 to the work we Whigs commenced in 1791, and when, sir, we 
 may propose the complete abandonment of the representative 
 system." (Loud cheers.) And it is notorious that Lord John is 
 only waiting for his great Reform Bill to go up to the House 
 of Lords. 
 
 The Radicals hardly seem to appreciate the course of events. 
 The country is in the humour, after such a week, in which the 
 word '' corruption" has been heard oftener than any other 
 word, to be led against the outrageous shams of the Constitu- 
 tional organisation; and yet the Radicals only laugh when 
 
126 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 13. 
 
 Mr. Drummond speaks, and are silent when Mr. Duffy is reck- 
 lessly veracious. A man is now wanted to speak out the 
 thoughts of the nation — to stifle the inanities of a Russell, and 
 punish the roguery of a Stafford. We are drifting into terrihle 
 acknowledgments — all faith in nationality, and honour, and 
 duty disappearing ; and the opportunity has come for a great 
 man to grasp the real leadership of a shameless Parliament. 
 Lord John Russell conceives, that though all the rest is rotten 
 — from the Keoghs in the House, to the Tomkinses in the 
 boroughs — he and his kind hold their heads, and breathe fresh 
 air, above the ocean of filth in which the pilotage is facile — to 
 stick : with majorities of 70 and 100 " in favour of." But there 
 is another sort of corruption at work which is creeping round 
 them, and sapping the manhood of Englishmen. The confes- 
 sions of the two Ministers on Thursday about the refugees 
 were dastardly : and even if England can afford, and tolerate 
 the disgrace of a police system, admitted to exist by the Home 
 Secretary, justified by the volunteer statesman, at least England 
 cannot desire that her governors should be silly — and silliness 
 is the characteristic of this fidgety feeble effort to entrap 
 refugees into offences against dead laws. Lord Palmerston 
 looked meanly — was mean. Lord John, loftily inane, was a 
 governor of the British Empire twaddling. We live so much 
 in routine, that such words astound and shock when connected 
 with the names of men of prominence and position. But it 
 was impossible not to feel, watching the interpellations on 
 Tuesday, that England had forgotten herself, in her anxiety 
 about budgets and emigration, to endure such men talking in 
 such wise. The degradation was but insufliciently redeemed 
 by the gallant conduct of the little Saxon group of Bright 
 and Cobden, Walmsley and Stuart ; they said much, but not 
 enough, nor what they said strongly enough ; and they spoke 
 to a thin House, disposed to take for granted that two great 
 Ministers could not be blundering. Mr. Bright spoke with 
 noble impressiveness ; and Mr. Cobden with his usual courage 
 — this time happily directed — effectually prevented the too- 
 dexterous Palmerston from quibbling away a painful fact. 
 But Mr. Bright may be assured that, just now, the House of 
 Commons is not to be managed by etiquette: and that the 
 people would bear and back him in the truth. He contrasted 
 the visits of the Orleans family to Windsor with the visits of 
 the police to Kossuth : he may connect them. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 14. 127 
 
 No. 14. 
 
 May 14. 
 What should we do without the Irish members ? The mono- 
 tony of Budget debates would be intolerable without the Irish 
 members. English members can misconduct themselves, on 
 proper provocation ; but we should have no provocations were 
 there no Irish members. Could Pitt have thought of this 
 when he was petting Castlereagh into passing the Union 1 At 
 any rate the reflection is universal at present ; and though we 
 afiect indignation at the recurring rows — as if we were devoted 
 to public business, and never thought of the House of Com- 
 mons as our principal public amusement — we have all of us, 
 during the week, been exceedingly obliged to those Celtic gen- 
 tlemen who have made "a holy show" of themselves, after the 
 manner of their race, in the Imperial Senate. 
 
 There were some fears at the general election, that a grave, 
 sedate, business-like, and honourable set of men were about to 
 be presented to Parliament as the " Irish party ;" but the ex- 
 perience of the fortnight has manifested the groundlessness of 
 those apprehensions. It is gratifying to discover, taking the 
 public amusement view of public affairs, that the Irish mem- 
 bers are as silly, as broguey, as useless, as quarrelsome, and as 
 contemptible as ever they were. That is, in the mass ; the ex- 
 ceptions are conspicuous, and need no particularization : they 
 are to be found in the little confederation for pure but perhaps 
 too national purposes — the "Irish party" — a party, despite all 
 desertions, still left. And as this is the exact character of the 
 general Irish representation, is it not most insane to entertain 
 any hopes of them, as a manageable confederation, for com- 
 bination purposes, or of the country which selects them ? They 
 know^each other best ; and what can England do but take 
 their accounts of one another? There is one very remarkable 
 circumstance in these Milesian brawls, as in all Milesian 
 brawls, whether in back streets or senates, and it is a circum- 
 stance which should operate to the destruction of the theory 
 that the Irish is a witty or a humorous race, which it certainly 
 is not — that there is never any "fun" in the rows. A jest, a 
 mot, a smart saying, never comes from Irish senatorial lips — 
 they deliver only vulgar, brainless abuse, in heavy, foolish 
 fashion. Gaiety itself is graceful ; but your Irish orators, in 
 these days, attempted the inflated, solemn style of talk — every 
 one of them stands upright, looks austere, and delivers himself 
 
128 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 14. 
 
 like Nerval when Nerval was in the act of giving his name and 
 address. What amusement the House does get is consequently 
 at the expense both of the fame for brains and the reputation 
 for respectability of gentlemen from Ireland, who are set down 
 not only as being injudicious and somewhat loosely moral, but as 
 dull dogs who are only useful for worrying one another. If 
 they had that sense of humour which is supposed to be a 
 national trait, they would have with it a sense of the ridiculous, 
 and so would avoid these sinister " scrimmages." They make 
 fools of themselves ; and in a sober, advertising way. Captain 
 Magan, the teterrimous occasion of the wars of the week, enters 
 battle in a red shirt ! You find it difficult to realize the pic- 
 ture of Captain Magan, who, you know, has suspicious-looking 
 moustaches and prononce eyes, wearing a red shirt ; but it is a 
 fact ; and what are you to think of the party who let loose 
 a leader in an oriflamme! — "this style, bs.V The idea of a 
 man talking of public honour in a red shirt ! What treasury 
 whip would keep a compact about income tax with a man in 
 tittlebat moustaches and a red shirt? And that is from the 
 deficiency in the party of a sense of the ridiculous — a sense 
 which keeps parties, like individuals, out of many impro- 
 prieties. Take another Irish incident of the week. At the 
 Thursday sitting — at about one in the morning — when all the 
 business was over ; when Secretary Wilson had his hand on the 
 peak of his hat, about to take it off, and wink at the Speaker — 
 which is motion of adjournment — when only about seven 
 members were left ; and when even Mr. Brotherton looked as 
 if he could go home, a gentleman rushed in, lurched about, and 
 took his stand near the middle of the floor. " Misther Spaiker, 
 Surr." All eyes were on the voice and the reeling figure; and 
 dead amazement crept over the faces of the seven members, 
 and Secretary Wilson removed his hand and shut his eyes. 
 The voice was undoubtedly in the possession of the floor — it 
 was a matter of calculation when it would take possession, 
 horizontally, of the said floor. ^' Surr," said it again : and the 
 Speaker said, "Order, order," in faint and appalled terms ; and 
 the eyes of the seven members and the thin galleries were on 
 the gentleman in the staggering voice who could not get be- 
 yond the exordium of his oration. What was it ? — has any- 
 thing serious happened ? — for one did not know at first whether 
 it was drink or agitation which affected the orator. Something 
 came at last. " Surr, the bill (stagger) — inspection of nuns — ■ 
 honourable gentleman — in his place — bill — on nuns (stagger), 
 ■^I'm a Catholic — want time — when will it come on? — con- 
 sider" (stagger and sits down). It was only a "question:" 
 the drunken gentleman wanted Mr. T. Chambers to say when 
 he would face the Government with his Bill for the Inspection 
 of Conventual Establishments : and Mr. T. Chambers answered 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 14. 129 
 
 with crushing politeness. Then the voice staggered up again 
 "in reply." "Surr — (stagger) — holy Roman religion — (stagger) 
 — inshult to Ireland : " and the voice and the man dropped 
 again ; and Mr. Wilson opened his eyes, took off his hat, 
 winked, and the House adjourned ; the theory in the gallery 
 being, that the drunken gentleman would be taken home in a 
 cab by Lord Charles Russell, as Serjeant-at-Arms, — rather a 
 fine, chivalric nobleman — who goes through that sort of incon- 
 venience for the sake of his salary. The drunken gentleman 
 was an Irish gentleman, of the essentially "religious" section 
 of the Irish representation; and rather venerated by the 
 priests, and accordingly permitted to assist in the Government 
 of the British Empire. Well, that is not an uncommon scene 
 — uncommon neither of the man nor of his party; and, of 
 course, the English House does not excuse it ; because, how- 
 ever merciful it would be to the gentlemen who come in 
 " gay," and happy, and graceful, and laughing — as several very 
 notorious and estimable gentlemen, English and Irish, punc- 
 tually do at eleven o'clock p.m., — it can only feel disgust for those 
 who are offensive, because they are stupid, and who never get 
 drunk but they insist upon the wrongs of Ireland and the 
 rights of Popery. So that, on the whole, the Irish memberdom 
 is not advancing in the British Parliament. Mr. Duffy and 
 Mr. Moore, and their little party, have two Irish reforms to 
 effect: — first, to make Irish "Liberal" members honest; next, 
 to make them respectable. 
 
 But, as before said, dogs, however dull, can worry one another ; 
 and the pack have their purposes on Budget debates. Weary, 
 very weary, are such debates at all times, but more peculiarly 
 oppressive are they when it is ascertained so accurately as just 
 now which way the divisions will go. It has even ceased to be 
 amusing to watch Mr. Disraeli's inconsistencies ; or one might 
 go with some pleasure, if it were not so exhausted a one, to 
 hear Mr. Disraeli denounce a Legacy Duty (to be balanced by 
 reductions in customs and excise) and a continuous income 
 tax, after having reissued " Sybil." But wondering reflections 
 upon the career of Mr. Disraeli are out of date ; and as he and 
 the party seem satisfied — they taking their statesman as they 
 take their cook (Disraeli in the House, and Palanque at the 
 Carlton) — and both chefs content if they succeed in stimulating 
 the jaded appetites of their employers — the public has nothing 
 to do with the arrangement. The criticism, however, is legiti- 
 mate that Mr. Disraeli is very dull of late. We know that he 
 can be humorous and lively on a Budget, but all his wit was 
 exhausted on his own Budget — on Mr. Gladstone's he is only 
 and unhappily argumentative ; insisting on being severely 
 logical, and yet not having a word to say against the most per- 
 fect financial scheme of our times : and his own genius in 
 
 K 
 
130 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 14. 
 
 such encounters being completely overshadowed by that of Mr. 
 Gladstone, who, in the first place, happens to be on the right 
 side ; and, in the next place, is far more closely master of his 
 subject, and can speak financial essays, as distinguished from 
 " financial exercitations." Last night, the lassitude which the 
 Budget compels fairly conquered the House ; Mr. Disraeli could 
 not force himself up to the speech due to his party; and the 
 debate ended, to the astonishment of a full House, at eleven, 
 no more speakers being forthcoming — a cause of adjournment 
 which never occurred before, in the memory even of Mr. Hume. 
 Those who did speak oratorised in a dim and melancholy way 
 — yawningly going through a public duty — except, indeed, 
 Lord Groderich, who was brisk and pointed, indicating all the 
 qualities for success in the life he has selected, and whose 
 vigorously-delivered advice to the country gentlemen to have 
 some common sense, if not common decency, about taxation, 
 was all the more impressive that it came from one whose own 
 interests are likely to be affected by legislative progress in those 
 principles Mr. Gladstone so unreservedly laid down. And the 
 House, finishing business at eleven, was perplexed how to kill 
 time till a sleeping hour, and unfortunately had no better sub- 
 ject than humorous denunciations of the corruption of Rye. 
 After eleven, the House of Commons gets very candid about the 
 public : and member after member admitted last night that 
 the constituency of Rye was a very scampish body, but that 
 really it ought not to be disfranchised, seeing that it was not a 
 bit worse than most of the other places to whose votes a large 
 class of English gentlemen are indebted for giving them a 
 night-house at Westminster, available after the Opera is up, and 
 when ball-rooms get too hot. 
 
 For there are evils which the ballot would not remedy, — a 
 profound consideration, which may reconcile us to Mr. H. 
 Berkeley's disappointment on Tuesday. There were 100 Liberals 
 (going to give a safe Radical vote) waiting in the lobby and 
 library for the motion, from seven till eleven ; having nothing 
 to do, they divided at eleven, in favour of a Protestant State 
 interference with weak ladies, in nunneries! Philosophic Radicals ! 
 Consistent Liberals ! Appalled at such a vote in an enlightened 
 House, Mr. H. Berkeley took time to consider, balloted for a 
 place last night, and is now postponed till the , when fur- 
 ther election and dockyard exposures may suggest new argu- 
 ments for the Ballot panacea for an enlightened country, which 
 cannot be trusted by the " people's party :" people's party at 
 present being very busy in taking you by the button, and con- 
 vincing you that there would be no corruption if you got the 
 ballot, because the briber could not bribe you if he could not 
 be sure you would really give your vote for him. Older and 
 less mortifying logic for the ballot was, that it was a protection 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 14. 131 
 
 to the intimidated classes of the enlightened land ; but nobody 
 seems to think about that now ; or would it not be urged on 
 Lord John Russell, that he has no right to disfranchise bullied 
 labourers in the dockyards 1 for that if they are subject to im- 
 proper influences, they are entitled, as Britons who never shall 
 be slaves, to the concealment of the ballot. The sug2:estion, 
 however, once made, as now, will be repeated. The Radicals 
 will repent of the cheers with which they received Lord John's 
 announcement this day week ; and coalescing with the Tories 
 will defeat the Government on the Disfranchisement Bill — a 
 result which will still further endear Lord John to the Peelites. 
 It is his policy to show the Peelites that he's the "popular 
 man" of the Cabinet after all, and as the Veneer-Liberal must 
 be treated decently. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 15. 
 
 No. 15. 
 
 May 21. 
 Some member ought to move for a Select Committee to inquire 
 into the origin of the institution of Easter and Whitsuntide 
 recesses. There is a traditional belief that a session of Par- 
 liament should commence about February, and should never 
 last over the 1st September, and that traditional notion is so 
 firmly established that, notwithstanding what might be urged 
 as to the consequences of hurry and bustle in public business, 
 it would be quite in vain to attempt to disturb the accepted 
 theory. But why an adjournment at Easter, when a fortnight 
 is lost ; why lose another w^eek at Whitsuntide 1 Lord John 
 Russell would refer you to the precedents — it has always been 
 so ; but this is an age in which everything has to find a justifi- 
 cation for itself ; and no ingenuity could hit upon an excuse 
 for the rising of the House of Commons from yesterday week to 
 yesterday. As to the Lords, who having nothing to do, always 
 take a longer holiday than the Commons, the inquiry might be, 
 not why they adjourn, but why they meet ? — Peers being files in 
 the amber of the British Constitution. But with regard to the 
 House of Commons it is certain that nobody wants these ad- 
 journments. Ministers would affect airs of over-work, and 
 speak of the necessity of relaxation from the Treasury benches, 
 in order that they may lie for a day or two " in their places" in 
 the country. That, however, would be a sham of impossible 
 credit; and to shorten the session at Whitsuntide, when it is 
 certain that the process would occasion a prolongation in 
 August, is statesmanship only to be paralleled by the im- 
 poverished Irish gentleman's resource for lengthening the 
 bedclothes, by cutting off* a tail-piece -with a view to the com- 
 ■ fort of his shoulders. And the sham is in this : that hard 
 work at great posts is great happiness ; that Ministers of State 
 never do feel work ; and that, deprived of the lounge and the 
 emotions of the House in the evening, they are ludicrously bored 
 to kill time. Well, if Ministers don't want inter-sessional holi- 
 days, who does ? Irish members, perhaps, who manage to cor- 
 rect the dissipations of the British metropolis by periodical 
 resort to seasickness between Kingstown and Holyhead. But 
 Irish members might contrive to arrange for that remedy by an 
 agreement for periodical suspensions of Irish business, for in 
 Imperial business they scorn to take an interest ; and would the 
 British public quarrel with a "compact" which diminished the 
 
PAKLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 15. 133 
 
 frequency of Irish rows 1 Scotch members are too economical 
 to indulge sentiment by unnecessary visits to their own, their 
 native land ; Mr. J. McGregor, for instance, considering him- 
 self in these days of rapid communication and cheap postage 
 far too well known to the world generally to require him to be 
 planted on his native heath, in order to communicate his name 
 to gazetteers. Then, as to the mass of English members who 
 glory in their crack club, " the House," and who, though they 
 have all plenty of personal affairs to look after, can always find 
 more amusement for their evenings at Westminster than any- 
 where else — these ludicrous and inconsequent adjournments 
 are so many positive injuries ; and were the suggestions divided 
 on, ninety-nine out of every hundred would vote against any 
 sort of holiday. As regards the public, it can afford to have 
 members killed off by bad ventilation ; there are always a 
 hundred candidates ready for every seat, and the public conse- 
 quently has a distinct interest in the uninterrupted continu- 
 ance of its principal "public amusement" — Parliamentary 
 proceedings. In the grave business view of the matter, these 
 adjournments are mischievous absurdities, and cause the loss of 
 an immensity of money to promoters of private bills, and to 
 the classes affected (and whose arrangements are thus 
 anxiously suspended) by the legislation in progress — as in this 
 instance, the many trades whom the Budget will revolutionise. 
 Perhaps in these calculations we should consider the Speaker, 
 who, simply because he has not direct mental occupation, 
 would not live through a year of constant " sittings." Doubt- 
 less : but Sir F. Thesiger would meet the difficulty, and recom- 
 mend a corps of Speakers — say a Trinity. 
 
 There was one reason, it may be, for this last holiday — Lord 
 John's health ; but it is becoming a question for a " strong 
 Government," whether it can afford to be led by an invalid. 
 Lord John's errors in the management of the House during his 
 own Premiership destroyed his Government, and he is quietly 
 and carefully now undoing on one hand what Mr. Gladstone is 
 doing on the other. Small defeats will, in the end, break up 
 the strongest Government, for they destroy the prestige without 
 which no Government can get on. Lord John's notion seems 
 to be, always, that if you take care of great questions, the 
 small questions will take care of themselves ; and accordingly, 
 he is nailing his colours of civil and religious liberty to the 
 mast, while the little leaks below are sinking the ship. Before 
 Whitsuntide he put the Government in a minority on the Con- 
 vents Inspection Bill — the result of his disinclination to appre- 
 ciate the tone of the House ; and the first night the House 
 meets after its breathe, he lets the Ministry be beaten on the 
 estimate for the annual whitewashing of Maynooth — again, 
 because he did not comprehend what is in progress, and made 
 
134 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 15. 
 
 no arrangement to meet Mr. Spooner's motion — Mr. Spooner, on 
 the other hand, having packed his side, and tricked the Treasury 
 benches. The Maynooth question is fought yearly in two ways. 
 There is the struggle for the repeal of the permanent grant 
 made by Sir Robert Peel in 1843 ; and there is Mr. Spooner's 
 small attempt, at last practically successful, to withhold the 
 annual grant made to Maynooth as among other "public build- 
 ings ;" and the latter is the "little go" of the bigots who, as 
 they cannot get rid of the scarlet lady altogether, will not al- 
 low her to patch her cloak. The very meanness of the motion 
 of Spooner should have been an argument for proper precaution ; 
 for the Government which might look liberal if defeated on the 
 " great go," looks ridiculous if plucked on the " little go." Mr. 
 Hayter sneaked out of the lobby into his whipper's bureau 
 after such a vote — contemplating, perhaps, his resignation — or 
 Lord John's, whose business it was to forewarn him — and, cer- 
 tainly, intending to write a few letters to the Maurice O'Connell 
 class of Irish members, which would undoubtedly diminish their 
 relish of the Dublin Exhibition — for when Government is 
 beaten, Mr. Gladstone^cuts Mr. Hayter, and Mr. Hayter slashes 
 the "traitor" Irish members; and as for Mr. Spooner, he 
 strutted about the lobby, radiant, like a true-hearted Protestant, 
 revelling in the consciousness that in 1853-4 pains of glass and 
 chinks of doors in Maynooth should remain broken and unre- 
 paired, and that if there must be a Host of Belial in Ireland 
 the said Host shall suffer from lumbago ; that if Anti-Christ is 
 to be encouraged he shall have a catarrh. There were few 
 Irish members in the House in the debate and division, and 
 there were, therefore, none of the natural "rows" and "expla- 
 nations," which, at another period, would have followed such 
 a significant event ; but as members came out after the division, 
 and returned to the coffee and cigars, from which the division 
 bell had summoned them, they looked and spoke gravely, 
 frowned at Mr. Spooner, and confidentially deplored, that just 
 now, when a great exhibition is encouraging internationalism, 
 and Irish Roman Catholics are inviting good feeling, and 
 offering graceful hospitality to English officials, S0 7nal apropos 
 an insult as this petty, spiteful vote should have been offered, 
 and that the maladroit Russell should have permitted it. Ac- 
 cordingly, the smoking-room was unfavourable that evening to 
 the great Whig chief ; and the probability is, that those who 
 were most vexed with him were the gentlemen who, to their 
 intense disgust, had found themselves in the majority. It is a 
 terrible select committee room, this smoking-room ; and if Mr. 
 Spooner had been there, on Thursday, he might have corrected 
 some errors as to the appreciation by this age, even by pledged 
 no-Popery senators, of men of his class. One suggestion of 
 the smoking-room is, that Mr. Spooner ought to be appointed 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 15. 135 
 
 as one of tKe inspectors of convents, for obvious reasons. Ano- 
 ther is, that Lord John Russell cannot be in earnest about 
 Jewish emancipation, or he would go up as a peer to plead the 
 cause to the Lords. The Peelite Ministers will appreciate the 
 sagacity of the hint all the more readily from observation of 
 Lord John's demeanour in the sudden debate which arose last 
 night on the Regiiim Bonum. Mr. Cobden, in an emphatic and 
 most impressive speech, which for once fastened itself on the 
 House, had elicited ringing cheers from the Ministerial side, by a 
 bold declaration that the sort of sectarian strife created out of 
 the ecclesiastical items of the miscellaneous estimates could not 
 go on, and that the end of it all must be — the abolition of all 
 State endowments of all religions. That declaration had stunned 
 the Spooner side of the House, and if the warning had been 
 permitted to pass — Mr. Cobden's "religious" position giving 
 weight to the threat — we should not for some months, not to 
 prophesy more boldly, have heard any more of the cant which 
 climaxes in anti-Maynooth window-mending motions. But 
 Lord John thought a moment had arrived for sententiousness 
 on civil and religious liberty ; the elbows fell into the hands in 
 the usual way ; the House stared in dread expectancy of what 
 was to be said for the Cabinet of the defeat of the preceding 
 evening ; and then Lord John, after a confession — Mr. Hayter 
 shuddered — that he had been taken by surprise by Mr. Spooner 
 — Mr. Spooner grinned — went on, " With respect, sir, to the 
 general question," to announce that he differed from Mr. 
 Cobden, and that the eiFect on his mind of the defeat was to 
 induce him to reconsider his old theory for the destruction of 
 the Irish difficulty, — viz. the endowment of the Roman Catholic 
 Church in Ireland ! * And Lord John, having made this coup, 
 could not sit down without expressing his regret that Mr. 
 Spooner was so ill-advised as to propose such amendments, which 
 tended to promote religious discord. An Irish and Catholic 
 member — Mr. Maguire — a journalist who is gradually getting a 
 hearing for his very practical, and not too patriotic- leading 
 articles — caught cleverly at the point, and wondered " really," 
 amid cheers and laughter, at the correspondent of the Bishop 
 of Durham rebuking Mr. Spooner for so small a provocation of 
 
 sectarian warfare. Even Mr. was applauded in correcting 
 
 Lord John Russell, assuring his " noble friend," in a thick voice 
 
 and disengaged manner — it is Mr. ■ 's style after eleven — 
 
 that he (his noble friend) did not know what he was talking 
 about, that business was business, and that the House couldn't 
 afford to "bother" itself with balancing between priests and 
 parsons. " Surr," said Mr. • , in the midst of roars of 
 
 * In cfTect Lord John hinted this, but not so forcibly as to attract 
 general attention. 
 
136 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 15. 
 
 laughter, " we must cut the painther, and sind for our priests 
 as we sind for our docthors — only whin we want thum." That 
 was the tone of the significant, however short, debate ; the tone 
 of anti-State Church, in the sense of indilFerentism ; and be- 
 cause it was so it was madness in the leader of the House to 
 raise a new suspicion on the part of the Spooners, without en- 
 suring a single new friend among the Liberals. 
 
 But Lord John!s errors do not end with Thursday and Fri- 
 day. He has matched Mr. Walpole's proposal of a militia 
 franchise by his notice of a bill to disfranchise dockyard 
 labourers. The suicidal silliness of the Radical cheers which 
 welcomed that proposal was noticed in this place at the mo- 
 ment ; and the disapproval of the scheme has been deepening 
 since among all classes of members — so careful and scrupulous 
 a party man as Whig Mr. Tufihell actually putting an amend- 
 ment on the paper, and defying his chief with a counter and 
 substitutive proposition of the Ballot. If Mr. H. Berkeley 
 were wise, he would throw over his own annual motion, and 
 collect all his strength to try the Ballot question on Mr. Tuff- 
 nell's amendment ; for it could not but be carried ; and if 
 carried, the question would immediately be: — If we protect 
 intimidated government employes in the dockyards, why not 
 enfranchise all other classes of government employes? and if 
 we protect government employes in general, why should we not 
 protect also with the ballot the intimidated classes of the en- 
 lightened country generally? That, then, is the damaging 
 position of Government. Lord John must go on to a defeat, or 
 he must mimic Mr. Walpole and attribute his bill to a miscon- 
 ceived jest of Lord Aberdeen ; and in either case the ballot is 
 presented as the experimental remedy for the unqualified 
 corruption and rascality of the majority of the constituencies 
 in England — a great advance in position (which they don't 
 deserve) for the Reformers. Lord John has fallen into this 
 folly because he has generalised no rules of conduct for deal- 
 ing with the electoral exposures. He is bewildered and he 
 blunders. There are half a dozen writs still suspended ; half 
 a dozen commissions have been issued, each commission to end 
 in a recommendation of disfranchisement ; and still Lord John 
 does not withdraw his undertaking to propose a reform bill in 
 1854, the possibility, then, being that British constituencies 
 will be practically lessened one-third in number, and there 
 being no guarantee that any better morality will be practised 
 by the voting bodies which remain, or would be created. 
 Clearly Lord John is not logical, and his colleagues may be 
 sure that they are only postponing their perplexity by refusing 
 to face the question which is now every night put to them 
 upon the successive motions for new writs — what is to be done 
 to check the tendency of electoral society in this country to 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 15. 137 
 
 bribe and be bribed? The dilemma for Englishmen who 
 regard their country as enlightened is, no doubt, very painful ; 
 to withhold a writ implies that the affected place is unworthy 
 of the franchise ; and to renew a writ when a member has been 
 unseated for bribery implies indifference to recognised rascal 
 practices. And the previous question of all for Liberals is — 
 if the countrymen we have enfranchised are such dead failures 
 as independent electors, why add to the corruption by adding 
 to the numbers of corrupters? Or, if we cannot prevent 
 national scoundrelism without secret voting, why carry on the 
 British constitution on false pretences 1 These are the inevi- 
 table inquiries and perplexities; the tone of the House of 
 Commons at this moment leads to that logic ; and, under such 
 circumstances, a Reformer asking for a Reform Bill is a poli- 
 tician reduced ad absurdum. The Canterbury commission 
 affords comment on a great number of the movements of the 
 day somewhat prejudicial to their chances. Canterbury is a 
 cathedral city, with an excess of ecclesiastical organisation; 
 and in such a case, proximity to churches being proved not to 
 be identical with intimacy with Christianity, what is there 
 left to say in favour of the Establishment 1 Then the voters 
 who were bribed were poor voters; and the Radical remedy 
 would increase the supply so as to reduce the price, and then, 
 when they could not get money to vote for, they would vote 
 for conscience' sake; or — give them the ballot — and they 
 would take the money, and still vote for conscience' sake. 
 Again, the corrupter^ are the party for Church and State. Mr. 
 Forbes Mackenzie, whose name was mentioned, and who is 
 proved to have given a large sum of money for corrupt 
 purposes, will of course be summoned, and placed in the 
 witness box, there to be treated by the indignant and inge- 
 nuous Anstey as roughly as Mr. Coppock was in the St. Alban's 
 inquiry ; and what a magnificent spectacle it would be for the 
 hyper-Protestant party, which selected Mr. Mackenzie as the 
 most likely and pious man for no-popery Liverpool, to behold 
 that gentleman in the confessional, narrating the ways and 
 means by which the country which is proud of the Reformed 
 Religion, and abhors Maynooth for its " sinful teachings," is 
 bought up for Lord Derby, the Protestant and the chivalrous ! 
 And when Mr. Mackenzie, an M.P., has contritely confessed, 
 will the House punish him as they talk of punishing Mr. 
 Stafford? And if Mr. Mackenzie, who else? If Lord John 
 acts up to the spirit of his Dockyards Bitl and his vote against 
 Sir Frederick Smith in the Chatham case, he would rapidly 
 produce this double result: he would abolish all the consti-t 
 tuencies, and not leave a single member! For a "leader,'* 
 that is a very brave policy, dazzling in a man who has a 
 Reform Bill nearly due. 
 
138 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 15. 
 
 The four days' holiday would have been a great gain to 
 public business if Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli had returned 
 with a policy for their party : but there are no signs that so 
 desirable an idea has yet been hit on by those personages. 
 They find fault — it is the only defect they can detect — with the 
 Coalition, for postponing all principles : but how far more un- 
 lucky are the Tories — that they have no principles even to post- 
 pone. Lord Derby, we may conceive, has a possible policy ; he 
 may fall back upon the intense Toryism which will always be 
 a distinguished feature of large masses of influential English 
 society : and as the leader of the bigoted and the backward — 
 those who pray for sectarian legishition, and insist on class 
 legislation — he will always, safe from contempt in his peerage 
 and his wealth, be a conspicuous and very powerful politician. 
 But this is not the policy, we may presume to take for granted, 
 which Mr. Disraeli would sanction, or would contribute to. It 
 seems understood, indeed, that he is bent upon making a vast 
 effort to lift his friends to a level with his own conceptions of 
 the true principles and purpose of a Conservative party. Mr. 
 Disraeli, in 1853, desires to see again the party he had built up 
 in 1846 — the party which was sneeringly called " Young Eng- 
 land," but which he regarded as the true Conservative confede- 
 ration on the genuine Tory basis. The Protection — versus 
 Free Trade — struggle, which destroyed so much, and created 
 so much, swept away the brilliant band of Young Englanders ; 
 but, that struggle over, and the nev/ commercial policy ac- 
 cepted, the Conservative party is now where it was in 1846 — 
 in that position which Coningsby sketched — and now Mr. 
 Disraeli feels himself prompted again to apply his re-creative 
 theories. And he has this advantage now which he did not 
 possess before, — there are at present no Whigs. Mr. Gladstone 
 has taken up national finance where Sir Robert Peel left it, and 
 Mr. Gladstone is the Government ; the Radicals are now where 
 they were in 1846, not an inch more practical or more power- 
 ful. The Liberals are as ready to follow Mr. Gladstone as they 
 were to follow Sir Robert Peel. And of the Conservative party 
 Mr. Disraeli may ask now as he asked before, " What is it that 
 we have to conserve 1 " He could not have a completer chaos : 
 ther6 never was a better chance for the " coming man." Will 
 he arrive % Mr. Disraeli is too accurate in his perceptions not 
 to see that a party was never kept together by negatives ; and 
 that the attitude which the Derbyites have taken up since 
 their expulsion from office, — the attitude of a sulky opposition, 
 proffering no plans — is ruinous: it has already given many 
 votes to the Coalition, and it has rendered those who remain in 
 gruff allegiance not only discontented, but contemptuous. 
 Mr. Disraeli is also too unerring in his calculations not to 
 observe that Lord Derby has had his opportunity, and missed 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 15. 139 
 
 it, and will never get a second chance — no man ever did ; and 
 that the party which appearances indicate Lord Derby is now 
 left to lead — the stupid and the selfish oligarchical classes — 
 while it will always be strong, it will never again succeed in 
 England. Mr. Disraeli has, consequently, only one course to 
 take — to wrench himself away out of the reach of the Spooner 
 and Newdegate sections, and to proclaim a principle, and lead a 
 new party representative of a current principle. Several cir- 
 cumstances combined to present that amiable confederation, 
 the Young England party, in a ludicrous point of view to the 
 public, but it had this merit — if "Coningsby" and "Sybil" 
 were its Old and New Testament : that its principles were com- 
 prehensible, and that its policy, as a programme, was noble and 
 generous. And this is certain, that it was the only i)arty in 
 which Mr. Disraeli would not look out of place — a great ad- 
 vantage for an ambitious statesman. This is a party which is 
 constructible out of the Tory Opposition : for where is the link 
 between Lord Stanley or Lord J. Manners, and Mr. Spooner 
 or Mr. Napier? It is a party which would diminish extensively 
 the " Liberal" ranks ; for where is Lord Goderich's place ? among 
 Whigs or Peelites? It is a party which would be nearer the 
 people than any other party, for the debate on the Stocking 
 Weavers' Bill a month ago has demonstrated, as Factory Acts' 
 debates have demonstrated before, and as the Factory Acts' 
 debates threatened again by Mr. Cobbett, will again demon- 
 strate — that the landed aristocracy sympathise with the masses 
 more than the monied aristocracy do, simply because they can 
 indulge charity without injuring their interests. And Mr. 
 Disraeli has had experience, as a man governing a nation as a 
 class champion, that there is no power where there is not popu- 
 lar support. But to create such a party is not enough to pass 
 the word to abuse the coalition, or to fasten upon the weak- 
 nesses and to ridicule the inconsistencies and the sillinesses of 
 individuals. England does not love coalitions: and does not 
 hate them ; it ignores individuals, and judges of Governments 
 by their acts. The gossip of clubs does not govern the polity 
 of a nation ; you cannot interest a people whom electoral ex- 
 posures do not prove very high-minded in the mass, in the 
 objectionableness of men, while their measures win almost 
 universal approval. But a time comes, even for strong coali- 
 tions : and opponents should prepare for it by providing them- 
 selves with prospects and policies. 
 
 All this is suggested with a view to seeing Mr. Disraeli 
 released from a bondage in which he is not natural, and there- 
 fore not successful. In suitable circumstances, he would 
 interest us and amuse us ; and the public which admires him, 
 and has still faith in him, would gladly help him in an effort 
 at self-enfranchisement. They would give him again the 
 
140 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 15. 
 
 power he covets, if he has the boldness to arrange a Tory party 
 fit for power; and that is only to be accomplished by the des- 
 truction of the existing Tory party. But Mr. Disraeli and 
 England must preliminarily understand one another; and 
 they don't at present. The delusions which he seeks to sustain 
 are not even tacitly admitted. He is not regarded as the 
 "Protestant leader" he pretends to be. He is not supposed to 
 be the natural organiser of the " territorial aristocracy." The 
 Mr. Disraeli of "public life" is accurately known to be a 
 foreign gentleman, above all national prejudices, and of a gene- 
 rous and cosmopolitan disposition, adequately enabling him to 
 take very profound views of our history and of our contempo- 
 rary politics; for some time figuring as an actor — an advo- 
 cate — and succeeding in a wonderful performance — making a 
 brilliant defence ; but, at present, mistaking his role^ and con- 
 founding his clients with his friends. In short, England knows 
 that there has been a real Mr. Disraeli and an histrionic Mr. 
 Disraeli; and that the real Mr. Disraeli is to be found in the 
 books, and not in the speeches. That, however, the books may 
 be spoken ; and that if they were, the^ Mr. Disraeli of 1853 
 could vindicate the Mr. Disraeli of 1832; and prove, in the end^ 
 the most practical "leader" of his time. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 16. 141 
 
 No. 16. 
 
 May 28. 
 Is it satirically that Lord Derby has named his horse for next 
 year's " blue ribbon of the turf," the Dervish ? Or is it the in- 
 tention that Lord Stanley shall ride him — Captain Bateson to 
 whip? Mr. Walpole knows how Lord Derby is given to joking ; 
 and there may be a party meaning in the sudden backing of 
 the Dervish. He is a horse who turned up on the day on which 
 the House of Commons divided about Church Rates ; and it is 
 impossible to avoid thinking of him, and of his owner's humour 
 in connection with the extraordinary steeple-chase, for which 
 all parties in the House entered on Thursday night. The con- 
 fusion was a climax in illustration of those kaleidoscopic party 
 combinations, which have rendered '^ Government by party" an 
 impracticability ever since Sir Robert Peel's death ; but the 
 groupings are of more than accidental importance — some of 
 them are of permanent significance ; and the moral of the 
 whole affair is of enduring interest, seeing that it so forcibly 
 suggests, in continuation of ample proofs afforded during the 
 session. Lord John Russell's inefficiency in his post as "leader." 
 In the first place, it is very noticeable, that Mr. Disraeli has 
 already accomplished the purpose, attributed to him in this 
 place last week, of breaking away, with the rest of his party, 
 from the antique class of Tories — in effect, therefore, breaking 
 up the Tory party, and dividing it on a question on which, 
 one year ago, all Churchmen, not to say Conservatives, would 
 have been furiously unanimous. In fact the hero of the debate, 
 though he contented himself with having printed his speech, 
 was Lord Stanley ; to his pamphlet, of course a suggestion of 
 Mr. Disraeli's, is to be assigned the whole of that influence 
 which resulted in taking such men as James Macgregor and 
 Mr. Geo. Hamilton into a lobby, opposite that which Sir R. 
 Inglis and Mr. Newdegate entered, on a vital church question. 
 It was a very proud position for a young man to occupy — that 
 of governing a discussion, and regulating a momentous division ; 
 and, it is to be hoped. Lord Derby's staunchest friends will appre- 
 ciate the intellect of Lord Derby's son, although there may be 
 doubts whether Lord Stanley's pamphlet has not left Lord Derby 
 without a party. With Lord Stanley and Mr. Disraeli voted Mr. 
 Walpole, Sir John Pakington, Lord John Manners, Lord Naas, 
 Mr. Cayley, Sir Edward Lytton, and Sir Robert Peel — intimat- 
 ing that, after twenty years' opposition, Lord Derby, too, would 
 
142 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 16. 
 
 have gone with his son in a surrender of Church rates ; and 
 these names, taken in contrast with the Tories who went with 
 the Radicals in the first division against Dr. Phillimore's mo- 
 tion, supply gratifying evidences that there is a progressive 
 movement among the Conservatives, wider and holder than 
 would have been anticipated even from Mr. Disraeli's boundless 
 influence among the younger men. Of course, however, Lord 
 Stanley did not go further than a vote for the motion ; the 
 Tories closed their ranks heartily against the more explicit 
 amendment of Sir William Clay. But the Whigs were sepa- 
 rated both on the first and second division. Solicitor-General 
 Bethel and Secretary-to-the- Admiralty Osborne voted plump 
 against their chiefs, and against the motion ; and against their 
 Government and for the amendment there voted, in addition 
 to the above. Sir William Molesworth — pity he had not the 
 whole of Mr. Osborne's courage — Mr. Baines, Mr. Fitzroy, Mr. 
 Lowe, Mr. Keogh, and Mr. Strutt. Open questions are neces- 
 sary in Coalition Governments, no doubt ; but when half-a- 
 dozen Ministers vote against another half-dozen Ministers, 
 would it not be more decent not to vote at all, as the Radical 
 Attorney-General Cockburn evidently thought? In the first 
 division, most of the steady Ministerialists voted against Lord 
 John; as, for instance, Mr. Brotherton, who is a "practical" 
 man, though a Liberal, and never vexes the Whigs except in 
 the most serious emergency, such as this, when disaffection was 
 so general that a humble individual had a chance of escaping 
 malignant notice ; and, with Whig Ministers, for Sir William 
 Clay, there voted against Lord John such mild Liberals or Coali- 
 tionists as Lord Robert Grosvenor, Sir George Grey (a man seem- 
 ingly down for the first vacancy in the Government), Mr. Glyn, 
 Mr. Layard, Mr. Heywood, Mr. V. Smith, Sir J. Duke, and the 
 Ellices. And these facts test Lord John's qualifications to lead 
 a House of the present House's conflicting materials. The 
 matter was a difificult one to get over, but Lord John got over 
 it in the very worst manner, confusing his colleagues and his 
 party to the greatest extent, and chiefly damaging the Govern- 
 ment's prestige by showing that he was not as advanced or as 
 prepared to deal with the question as the par excellence Church 
 party themselves. He was in the same lobby with Lord Stanley 
 for Dr. Phillimore's motion ; but with this difference, that Lord 
 Stanley was ready to adopt the Doctor's bill, and that Lord 
 John was only voting proformd^ in order the more effectually 
 to prevent any legislation whatever on the subject. Lord John's 
 vote was ludicrously in contrast with his speech, and, as Mr. 
 Bright forcibly pointed out, with all his former conduct ; and 
 the only explanation to be given of that vote, and the dis- 
 organisation afterwards visible among Ministers is, that he 
 changed a pre-arranged plan at the last moment, shrunk before 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 16. 143 
 
 the cheers of the Churchmen, and was abashed at the silence 
 of his own benches, and calculated on avoiding a possible trap 
 by tumbling into what proved a disastrous minority — in which 
 Lord John looked silly, as is his wont lately. To do the 
 Radicals justice, they were very well together — in the "ruck," 
 as usual ; and exhibited their well-known statesmanlike quali- 
 ties in losing the chance of making use of Whigs and Tories 
 to get Dr. Phillimore's bill brought in. They knew they could 
 not carry the amendment, so they voted against the motion — 
 repudiated the thin edge of the wedge, for once — and left the 
 question over for another year ; they are so devoted to prin- 
 ciple, that they can't afford to be rational. For what has hap- 
 pened they therefore divide the blame with the "Leader" of 
 the House, who, nevertheless, should have voted and led with 
 them against the motion when he had ascertained their inten- 
 tions ; but the Radicals may enjoy this triumph peculiar to 
 themselves, that they have allowed one of their pet questions 
 to be tried on bad issues — Sir William Clay's amendment being 
 most awkward in construction ; and many of them, as Mr. 
 Hume, voting for it with a protest against its provisions ; — all 
 this being the consequence of the absence of proper party or- 
 ganisation. However, as other parties appear to be imitating 
 them, they are not likely to set about the presentation of a 
 paternal despotism to Mr. Hume, or of an autocracy over them 
 to Mr. Bright. Freedom from party restraints is evidently en- 
 joyable ; or — to give one among many instances — we should 
 not see Mr. Walter, a borough member and not a Tory, voting 
 against both Dr. Phillimore's motion, and Sir W. Clay's amend- 
 ment. 
 
 The debate was far less interesting than the division. The 
 electric telegraph to the Clubs and Covent Garden Opera House 
 is fatal to good debates between eight and eleven o'clock ; for 
 who would leave Grisi for Wishy, or Mario for Washy ? The 
 House did not fill till near midnight ; nearly until Lord John 
 rose there were empty benches — Lord Stanley representing the 
 whole of the Opposition : and twenty Radicals, who were all 
 intending to speak, and fraternally contesting for the Speaker's 
 eye with one another, constituting the House ; and good 
 speaking to thin audiences is as impossible as good acting to 
 thin audiences ; so that it was all very dull indeed. Dr. Phil- 
 limore, the mover, made a beautifully clear and exquisitely- 
 balanced speech, impressed upon the twenty Radical gentlemen 
 by the polished manner and the fine voice ; but the good speak- 
 ing ended there, until Mr. Bright's turn came, and his vigorous 
 sententiousness told as usual, — it was so good to hear Mr. 
 Bright, " as a real friend to the church," advising Sir Robert 
 Inglis to have some sense. There was no getting over the 
 
144 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 16. 
 
 hideous impression of boredom affected by Sir William Clay. 
 The pretentious flatulence of that worthy gentleman is not 
 acceptable on summer evenings ; but he spoke long enough, 
 and loosely and heavily enough, to give the hue of his own 
 dreariness to the debate ; and all that followed was ditto of 
 Sir William Clay, the thin House unconsciously sinking from 
 the oratorical into the conversational, and carrying on the dis- 
 cussion droningly, as in a committee. There is a Mr. E. Ball 
 in the House, who followed soon after the cognate Sir William ; 
 and the effect of Mr. E. Ball, who speaks in a sort of wheeping 
 howl, with a bass voice in mourning, is to be conceived on a 
 question of Church rates. Mr. Hume could not inspirit on 
 such an occasion ; and Mr. Edward Miall, however admirable 
 his leading article would have been in print, added nothing to 
 lift the House out of its yawn, and into oblivion of Clay and 
 Ball. Mr. Peto, on the voluntary principle— he, the very illus- 
 tration of it, the greatest subscriber of his age — was un- 
 affected, energetic, and earnest, and was cheered, as he de- 
 served, by Mr. Miall ; but as twenty Radical gentlemen 
 around him bounced up when he sat down, it is to be pre- 
 sumed they did not regret his peroration. Then came Sir 
 George Grey, as the benches got more occupants, with a 
 flood of impetuous commonplace, and vehement truisms, — 
 speed is his distinction as an orator — he tears along like an 
 express engine — which has no carriages behind it ; and then 
 succeeded Lord John, — a coal-wagon after a special, slow, and 
 not more sure — feeble and cold, a leader leading in felted shoes, 
 and summoning his forces in a whisper ; the old Whig being 
 laughed at by the young Tories, who are more abreast of the 
 age, and growled at by the middle-aged Radicals, who take for 
 granted that they are ahead of it, — sneered at and fumed at, of 
 course, by the men behind him, — Molesworth, who despised 
 such a timorous policy, and Gladstone, who, at any rate, after 
 having made his Government strong by a grand Budget, 
 naturally objects to being led into a minority lobby once in 
 every week, which is Lord John's way. All these aspects and 
 influences were obvious when Lord John was on his legs ; he 
 was palpably a man who had no hold of the House, and who 
 had no business whatever in that attitude of leader, seeing that 
 he was not only behind the spirit of the time, but not up to 
 the tone of the House itself; as Mr. Bright, who followed, 
 excited by the then filled House, and rattling along in all the 
 pride of intellectual energy and animal strength, and with the 
 impetus of strong convictions, and with the encouragement of 
 perfect knowledge and mastery of his audience, brusquely told 
 the Veneer member of the Cabinet — the rough hint, bringing 
 down a general cheer from the Ministerial side, and supplying 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 16. 145 
 
 a " mem.," which Mr. Disraeli took, and will not forget to make 
 use of when the occasion arrives for his inevitable criticism 
 upon the ^'unities" of Coalition Governments — as evidenced in 
 the concluding and astounding division. 
 
 There is one name in the division-list which requires separate 
 notice. Mr. Augustus Stafford — an undoubted model Christian, 
 more particularly with regard to a commandment enjoining 
 intelligibility and explicitness in statements, parliamentary 
 and otherwise, who would not admit Jews because they would 
 unchristianize the Legislature, and an equally undoubted model 
 in his speciality as a Churchman — voted with the Progressive 
 Tories for the motion, and then against the amendment. Very 
 good for a Derby ite. But it is one of those questions of the 
 day which must take its turn to be answered some night, — 
 ought not Mr. Stafford to take a Sabine farm in the Hundreds 
 of Bucks ? It is pleasanter to have his vote for than against 
 the settlement of the church rates controversy, but instead of 
 giving that vote, he ought to have been at that Blatherwyke 
 Park which brings him in £25,000 a-year, and which saves 
 his "personal honour" accordingly, whatever he may do — at 
 his park to employ himself in reading Lord Brougham's speech 
 the other day, on the increase of perjury in the lower orders. 
 The House — the public at least — expected that after the report 
 of the Committee he would have given up his seat ; but he has 
 great "pluck;" — a less mild name might be given to the 
 quality : — he is resolved to face all the purists dare hint, and 
 now it becomes a serious difficulty to decide what should be 
 done. No man likes the initiative, in such a business ; and yet 
 to allow Mr. Stafford to escape altogether, would be mischievous 
 to the reputation of the whole House. There is a provocation 
 to extreme proceedings, in his jaunty demeanour : the insensi- 
 bility to a sense of proper shame demands correction, even a 
 violent one. Mr. Stafford is quite right in concluding that he 
 only illustrates a general system, and that he is not much 
 worse than the best member of the Commons, which is not a 
 sensitive or scrupulous body, in regard to public morality, and 
 which, privately, is still partial to Mr. Stafford's society. But, 
 beyond the House, he might detect the existence of a people, 
 which does not live in club routine, and which heartily despises 
 him, and would relentlessly punish him ; and that he is so 
 indifferent, because of his confidence in the sham of the House 
 itself, argues unpleasant philosophy among the governing 
 classes, and a want of nationality, implying that the country is 
 getting rather too enlightened in its tolerations. Mr. Stafford 
 is too small a person, of too petty and contemptible crimes, for 
 an impeachment, but he is large enough for a resolution of cen- 
 sure ; and, after that, even though he still lounged about the 
 lobbies, in the old How-do manner, he would be as marked ag 
 
 L 
 
146 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 16. 
 
 Hudson, — in, but of, the House ; and to the Northampton 
 Nemesis might be left the conclusive vindictiveness of rejec- 
 tion. As Mr. Disraeli kindly says of Lord John, it would not 
 matter to turn him out, because Lord John has " a resource," 
 so it may be remembered, in a consolatory way, that Mr. Staf- 
 ford — who has accomplishments that should have elevated him 
 above the offices of an attorneying party tool — may avenge his 
 fall, as Bolingbroke avenged his, by writing books, bewailing 
 the imperfections of the political man. Martyrdom has its 
 comforts : even at the stake he may enjoy the sight of legisla- 
 tive hypocrisy; and perhaps it is the apprehension of the 
 sneers, as he would fall, which withholds the blow. Mr. Keat- 
 ing's notice, "to call the attention of the House" to the report 
 of the Committee, is too vague, and is too studiously not per- 
 sonal to satisfy the demand felt rather than expressed, but felt 
 forcibly. But the discussion even brought on that way will 
 call for a new combination of parties, and will put Lord John 
 in another difficulty — Lord John, doubtless, being again pre- 
 pared to stultify and to cast suspicion on the " first assembly of 
 gentlemen in Europe." 
 
 The Government, however, get on when Lord John is away, 
 and the work done last night by Lord Aberdeen in the Lords, 
 and by Mr. Gladstone in the Commons, was calculated to put 
 the members of the Cabinet in sufficient good humour with one 
 another and the world to prevent quarrelling at the council 
 to-day. In the first place, the attempt made respectively by 
 Mr. Disraeli and Lord Malmesbury to convict Ministers of a 
 false move at Constantinople was palpably premature ; for 
 there were no facts on which to base the contemplated insinua- 
 tion ; and the Opposition attitude became consequently the 
 unworthy one of cavilling for the cavil's sake — objecting, but 
 not advising ; and at the same time getting no information. 
 But the ^'interpellations" which passed in the gaping and 
 gobemouche senate were a commendable illustration of Kos- 
 suth's recent remarks on our " secret diplomacy." The inter- 
 pellations obtained the most reverent attention because they 
 were about the possibilities of an European war ; but the 
 parties to them were esoteric statesmen ; the represented 
 public was profoundly ignorant of the influences at work and 
 of the cause at stake, and was not impertinent enough to ask 
 for instruction. The William Williams and Lord Monteagle 
 class of members trembled and were perplexed ; but they knew 
 nothing, and had no chance of knowing anything, of what was 
 going on nor of what they had to expect, and they sat silent. 
 Not, however, that they had great trust in Lord John or in 
 Lord Clarendon; but because they are accustomed to the par- 
 liamentary system, which leaves the people utterly powerless in 
 regard to British policy outside Great Britain. M. Kossuth, 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 16. 147 
 
 reading these interpellations to-day, will continue his astonish- 
 ment at our national flattery of ourselves, that we are a 
 decidedly free and unreservedly self-governing country. 
 
 In the second place, the Government got "strong" last night 
 by its rebuffs of the feeble, quasi-Protectionist opposition to 
 the Budget. 
 
 Lord Derby, querulous, testy, and mischievous, had the folly 
 to fight a regular pitched battle with the Government, in the 
 Lords, on the Succession Tax (Legacy Duty Extension) ; and, in 
 evidence how completely the Coalition has broken up the Con- 
 servatives, and how largely Lord Derby has sunk as a "safe" 
 guide in the confidence of the Peers, he was beaten easily. 
 There was great anxiety about the division, because, as the first 
 real struggle the ins and the outs have had in the Lords, there 
 was much doubt of the issue. Lord Derby erred doubly in the 
 course he took, first, because he got the question so put as to 
 make the division a Peers' division — content or non-content 
 with the Budget — certain to damage his chances and lessen his 
 leadership if he was left in the minority ; and secondly, he has 
 blundered in risking the question, — had he a constitutional 
 right to force on the Lords a controversy about the finance of 
 the Commons 1 No very general objection will be taken to his 
 arrangements for political suicide ; but his own class is 
 intensely interested in his bad temper and fussy ambition, not 
 being allowed to bring the Upper House into a false position. 
 Lord Derby, with his instinctive longing for excitement, will 
 not face the fact, that the Lords are a quiet court of registra- 
 tion, which wise lords like Lord Aberdeen are willing that it 
 should be, that being the condition of its existence at all ; 
 and, accordingly, such "marry come up" speeches which Lord 
 Derby spoke at the Commons gallery last night — impotent 
 exhibitions of fidgetty enviousness, certainly not calculated to 
 impart dignity to the "order" the orator affects to vindicate. 
 For the Peers to confess to an ignorant impatience of taxation 
 could never be judicious, and was, last night, an exhibition 
 least of all serviceable to their interests, seeing that they 
 attacked precisely that portion of the Budget (which has other 
 defects)* which is the most popular. And whatever justifica- 
 tion Lord Derby might have had, could he have got a majority, 
 he remains without any, after a defeat : — as, indeed, directly 
 after the defeat was buzzed about along the great corridor into 
 the Commons, and even among the whilom Protectionist and 
 subsequent believers in chivalry benches. From the one House 
 to the other was rung the change in scenes of the same play : 
 the curtain fell on Lord Derby and rose on Mr. Butt. The sel- 
 fish ruse having failed, the patriotic generosity was being 
 
 ? 
 * The Succession Duty Bill. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 PARLIAMENT ABT RETROSPECT, NO. 16. 
 
 attempted. Lord Aberdeen having refused to give up the 
 legacy duty on land, Mr. Butt, a usefully-loquacious Derbyite, 
 was put up to insist upon an exemption from income tax of all 
 incomes under ^150 a year ; and on that there was a division, 
 too ; and on that also the Government gained strength. But 
 Mr. Butt was only a guerilla. Mr. Disraeli left the House 
 when the motion was made, — Mr. Disraeli usually sitting still 
 and stern, all argument having surrendered to the triumphant 
 destinies of Gladstone ; and Mr. Butt, who wants a judgeship 
 when Mr. Disraeli is next in office, was therefore unhappily un- 
 appreciated, and had to endure Mr. Gladstone's sneers, without 
 reward or consolation. Yet Mr. Butt was far more statesman- 
 like than Lord Malmesbury or Lord Derby had been that even- 
 ing ; for the Lords repudiating legacy duty were just as 
 ludicrous as Mr. Tollemache, as member for Cheshire, de- 
 nouncing the reduction in the import duty on cheese ; and 
 Mr. Butt was worthy of a better fate than being laughed at as 
 a busy Irish barrister, seeking patronage from English govern- 
 ing classes. Mr. Gladstone demolished Mr. Butt as he had 
 demolished all Mr. Butt's predecessors (that evening) in the 
 moving of impossible amendments. Mr. Gladstone has a quiet, 
 contemptuous way, which is a great hit in committee, and 
 which is enabling him to pass the clauses of his Budget Bill 
 with most workmanlike rapidity. His knowledge on the 
 minutest points of detail is marvellously elaborate, and yet he 
 has the faculty of never letting his hearers sink among the 
 details, while his explanations are so clear, and so complete, 
 that he has never to " explain." To all these gifts, specially 
 happy in a Finance Minister having to defend at all points a 
 surprisingly-complicated scheme of taxation, he adds the gift, 
 — of being insensible to labour. Fighting that Income Tax 
 Bill through Committee for seven hours last night, was a work 
 equal to a many-briefed barrister's whole single term in Chan- 
 cery ; and yet at one in the morning, Mr. Gladstone was 
 entreating the House to "go on." He has been "surprised" 
 so much lately at motions for adjournment on this Budget, 
 that he is gradually getting the House out of its modern 
 Brothertonian habits. The rule is now setting in for members 
 to go home at daylight, wondering how they will get down to 
 their committees at eleven. 
 
 But Mr. Gladstone is not fully employed with the Budget. 
 He has taken up another labour in the Savings' Bank Bill, of 
 which he has given notice : so shaming Sir Charles Wood, who, 
 never working at all, never had the courage to grapple with 
 the subject. Sir Charles hadn't courage to govern savings' 
 banks ; but he will get up quite cool, on the 3rd, to govern 
 India. Sir Charles is a Yorkshire squire, who was never heard 
 of till the Greys insisted on his being made Finance Minister 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 16. 149 
 
 in 1846, and as a Finance Minister he was the deadest failure 
 remembered in our times — and we have known Lord Ripon and 
 Lord Monteagle. But this Yorkshire squire is quite ready to 
 undertake the management of the finance, and politics, and 
 society of 150,000,000 Hindoos, and, of course, will be con- 
 sidered, on the 4th, to have made an " able statement." Repre- 
 sented public knows little of Constantinople, but how much 
 less of Calcutta ! On the 4th, therefore, something more may 
 have to be said about the self-government, as suggested by 
 Kossuth, of the British Empire. 
 
150 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 
 
 No. 17. 
 
 June 4. 
 " The question upon whicli we have to ask the House to pro- 
 ceed to legislate," said Sir C. Wood last night, trying to rise t( 
 a conception of his position, " affects, for weal or woe, the des- 
 tiny of 150,000,000 of our fellow-subjects." He-ar, he-ar, saic 
 three British gentlemen, in conscientiously solemn tones. N( 
 doubt it was a vast topic, and a great occasion : but only 15( 
 gentlemen could be got together to be audience. There wer( 
 perhaps 50 more when Sir C. Wood got on his inexpressible 
 legs ; but they fled at the signal, and were off, scattered througl 
 town far out of reach of that dreadful man ; comforting theii 
 consciences with the promise that they would read the news- 
 paper summaries in the morning, and do what they could foi 
 the 150,000,000 fellow-subjects. And more than 50 woulc 
 have gone ; hardly a House of the mysterious 40 would hav( 
 been kept, but for a personal interest, not concerning th< 
 150,000,000 in any respect: — a rumour, almost a belief, thai 
 there was a "split" in the Cabinet on the business — that Si] 
 Charles was talking only for the Whigs — and not for th( 
 Peelites — and that there was a chance, this fact intimating 
 that the measure was a bad one, of a Government failure, i 
 hostile division, a resignation, and so on. A circumstanc< 
 somewhat unusual confirmed the impression. No sooner wai 
 Sir Charles shot up for his oration than Mr. Gladstone was oi 
 his legs too, hurrying away, up to the gallery, on to the bench 
 and in five minutes into a deep sleep. Colleagues don't do thi: 
 ordinarily : and the supposition was — he didn't care to hear i 
 drone through a Bill he had already repudiated, and would b( 
 glad of a decent opportunity to retire upon. Certainly, Mr 
 Disraeli, having received news from the city that the stock con- 
 version scheme was a complete failure, owing to that odd rise ii 
 the bank's rates, had just given notice, with a coolness unsur 
 passed even in Mr. Disraeli, that he should shortly call the atten- 
 tion of the House to " the state of the finances of this coun- 
 try ;" a phrase which suggests that a coalition has brought m 
 to bankruptcy ; and Mr. Gladstone, who could not be good tem- 
 pered after the Ministerial events of the week, felt, doubtless 
 the fine irony of such a notice of motion. But the one cause 
 would suffice for a retreat; human nature, however well trained 
 in parliamentary tediousness, must give way under Sir Charles 
 Wood. Here is a Yorkshire squire, of the narrowest capacity/ 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 151 
 
 for business, utterly unable to speak a sentence in English, 
 with no conception of literary arrangement in statement, with 
 a gulositous voice which renders him incomprehensible for 
 twenty minutes out of every sixty minutes, put up to govern 
 India — his 150,000,000 — having been in the Indian department 
 about six months, and, before he entered the Indian depart- 
 ment, having, most likely, doubted whether Hindostan was on 
 this or on the other side of the Persian Gulf. Why 1 Because 
 he is a Whig country gentleman of immense conceit, who 
 married into the Greys, and whose property and family influ- 
 ence was such, that he could not be left out of a coalition, the 
 organisers of which did not look beyond the clique of a class 
 which breeds not only hereditary legislators, but hereditary 
 Secretaries of State. It is ludicrous to hear Sir C. Wood mak- 
 ing a speech ; the man would be driven and hooted from any 
 debating club of boys; he would be a butt in a vestry; he 
 would be submerged at a railway meeting. As Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, he made a notorious fiasco in his measures, 
 principally because no one could ever get at any comprehen- 
 sion, from him, of what the measures were ; and if ever they 
 were passed, it was 'because his private secretary waited upon 
 the editors of newspapers to explain. But of finance, after 
 several years' practice, and some knowledge of the account- 
 books of his estate, he knew something, and perhaps had a 
 notion of what he ought to say. Of India he could know 
 nothing; and it is a fact, that if Mr. Robert Lowe had not 
 been sitting as prompter, — not being married into the Greys, 
 he is made a subordinate to cram Wood — putting him right 
 every ten minutes, he would never have got to the end of his 
 speech at all. The exhibition was, therefore, pitiable ; but it was 
 offensive ; and how the House felt it was evidenced in the way 
 it thinned after the first hour, was left thinned long after the 
 dinner-hour, and filled only when Mr. Bright got up, and then 
 cheered him on all sides, but one side clearly out of vexation 
 with Wood, and to get a relief for the wearied and bored heart. 
 Sir Charles talked in a parenthesis of an hour an apology for 
 his incompetence to deal with the " magnitude" — that word 
 came in about twice a minute — of the subject ; and one thought 
 and asked. Why, then, didn't you go back to Yorkshire, and 
 leave it to your sub, who, you know, is a man of genius ? Yet, 
 with all his sense of incompetence, he talked from half-past 
 five to half-past ten — five mortal hours of a second-rate York- 
 shire squire on behalf of the 150,000,000. Plain purpose, 
 symmetry, construction, there was none in his speech ; and 
 what he said could have been said in an hour, could have been 
 written into a column of a morning paper, instead of being 
 reported into fifteen columns; and after such an elaboration of 
 chaos, it becomes a question of the day — why are these great 
 
152 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 
 
 Ministerial statements spoken — why are they not laid on the 
 table like resolutions or bills ? They are only spoken, as last 
 night, to Houses of fifty bored senators, trying to keep up a 
 decent appearance to the Stranger's Gallery — to be printed; 
 and the process involves excessive printing, and practically the 
 non-reading by the public of what the public should familiarly 
 know; and why should not the ludicrous process be reversed] 
 the beginning begun at the beginning 1 Mr. Gladstone was 
 endurable — Mr. Disraeli was endurable — in their respective 
 five hours' budgets; but when we get Sir C. Wood's perform- 
 ances, we are compelled to consider whether matters could not 
 be arranged in a private interview with the reporters' gallery 
 before dinner. At any rate, if we are to get pamphlets for 
 speeches, let them be good pamphlets — let the Woods be edited 
 by the Lowes. Sir Charles was sloppy, slovenly, and loose, 
 with neither exordium nor peroration ; it was all middle. He 
 started with a rush m medias res, and he floundered there all 
 night — perorating in a jerk responsive to a twitch of the coat 
 tails. It was a peroration about the progress of Christianity 
 in India, and what Sir Charles would do to advance the cause 
 of Christ. By what? — by educating the natives. Sir Charles 
 — ^who had talked fifteen columns, and not one sentence of 
 English ! - 
 
 Nearer religions have occupied attention during these last 
 few days — Lord Derby — about to face an Oxford installation, 
 and scrupulously bigoted up to the last moment — would have 
 it that Lord Lyndhurst meant to let in the Jews by the Par- 
 liamentary Oaths Bill, and out the Bill has gone accordingly, 
 with two consequences — one, Lord Lyndhurst's ire, almost per- 
 suading him to coalesce with the Coalition ; another, the last 
 feather in breaking down the "austere intriguer's""^ endurance 
 of Lord Derby ; so that there is a prospect of debates in the 
 Lords improving, when Lord Derby gets back to provoke the 
 two angriest and two of the most able men in the empire. He 
 revelled in spitefulness in regard to that bill. Lord Derby is 
 essentially, be it said with due regret, a little-minded man, of 
 a peevish, vixenish nature — though, being an Earl, whenever 
 he scratches, he is said to be chivalrous — and Lord Lyndhurst, 
 however anxious to please his Semitic connections, ought to 
 have known that the occasion he has presented of hitting the 
 Government through him would not be lost by the man who 
 has no other amusement but debating and dividing. He threw 
 the bill out on an hypothesis, and that was ludicrous, in a 
 " responsible" senate ; but it was as good a reason as another, 
 when his mind was made up to teaze the Coalition, whom he 
 
 * By the way, this high-Tory epigram is an imported Gallicism; it was 
 applied to Giiizot by the journals of the Opposition in the days of French 
 Parliamentary journalism. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT; NO. 17. 153 
 
 can't forgive for having convinced mankind that he is an in- 
 capable, as little qualified for the consulship as his two-year 
 old animal, "Dervish." A little thought should have con- 
 vioced him — his son might have suggested to him — that public 
 opinion generalizes, and that the nation, finding Lord Derby 
 attempting to restrain the hidden Liberalism of Lord Lynd- 
 hurst, will come to a dismal conclusion as to the position of 
 the former in respect to the " spirit of the age," and that such 
 a suspicion, just now, does not promote practical power, even in 
 the Peers, whatever the readiness of the Mesdames Harris of 
 that assembly to invest in him their proxies. The public will 
 generalize, and will not master all the facts and circumstances ; 
 and after Lord Lyndhurst's speech, Lord Derby's vote will be 
 accepted as the vote of a silly man, falling back from the Con- 
 servative party into the ranks of the camp followers and 
 preachers — the Winchelseas and Inglises. For half a century 
 has Lord Lyndhurst served that Conservative party, led by 
 Lords who, as a rule only proved by exceptions, are incapable 
 men. The Conservative party is always importing and bring- 
 ing up champions — once it was Lyndhurst, then Peel, now 
 Disraeli: and his reward is — he is repudiated when he is seek- 
 ing to relieve it from a stigma stupidly attached to it, out of 
 the mere personal littleness and spitefulness of a man who 
 never could distinguish between the characteristics of a party 
 debate and a cock-pit struggle. Lord Lyndhurst, however, got 
 his reward ; for the first time, in his restless career, he has felt 
 the mass of his countrymen moving with him ; and that sensa- 
 tion must have been grateful when he talked over, with Mr. 
 Disraeli, Lord Derby's wrong-headedness, and when these two 
 foreign gentlemen — the son of the American, and the grandson 
 of the Spaniard — shook their heads over the bigotry and booby- 
 ism of inane British nobility. Lord Lyndhurst has other com- 
 pensations. He had performed a parliamentary feat which is 
 not likely ever to be paralleled. Eighty-one years of age, he 
 walked down to the House of Lords, and made a speech of an 
 hour's length, and in which no traces of age could be detected : 
 — no, not even in the voice, which, though low and subdued, is 
 still tempered into that telling modulation which used to make 
 it a notorious musical luxury to find Lord Lyndhurst on his 
 legs. He is not now, observe, to be listened to as you listen to 
 the Marquis of Lansdowne; — as a relic of the old style of 
 parliamentary oratory. Lord Lyndhurst never adopted the 
 parliamentary style; he aimed at fine elocution, and not at the 
 knack of "the House;" and he succeeded in being the finest 
 speaker of his time — something to succeed in, seeing that in 
 his time he has seen two generations of fine speakers, from 
 Charles Fox to Benjamin Disraeli. An excitement would re- 
 produce, even now, his old vigorous and desperate sarcasm — ^a 
 
154 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 
 
 sarcasm from Lord Lyndhurst is given in a Kean whisper, 
 inexpressibly searching — and it would be a vast benefit to an 
 unamused gallery, at present, if he could be got into a good 
 passion with Lord Derby. And it would be a benefit to the 
 Government : for, with all the "array of talent" talked of so 
 loudly, when the Coalition was formed, they are actually brow- 
 beaten by Lord Derby. He is ready and impudent, and they 
 only match him with men who are only impudent and not 
 ready. The Duke of Newcastle always raises his voice, and 
 tries to look contemptuous ; but he confesses too much anger. 
 The Duke of Argyle, if he were youthful and natural, would 
 be a fair antagonist ; but he argues ; and Lord Derby should 
 be laughed at, for Lord Derby, in a proper point of view, is 
 ridiculous. Earl Grey says very savage things, and really feels 
 the inspiring disdain; but he is now sulky with the Govern- 
 ment, and it is not his business to debate for them. Then 
 Lord Aberdeen — he has no readiness, and is bidding for some 
 of Lord Derby's proxies, and daren't talk out to the party, 
 though, as we have seen lately, he can lose his temper, now and 
 then. As for the Marquis of Lansdowne, he acts in the Lords, 
 like Lord John Russell (as Lord John fancies) in the Commons 
 — only as Veneer-Liberal, and doesn't talk. His bufi" and blue 
 (he dresses like a cover of the Edinburgh — Whigs have lost all 
 other distinctions) is seen standing out from the reach of the 
 Ministerial benches, merely to relieve the Austrian colours of 
 Aberdeen, black on white — as, in fact, warranty of a Cabinet 
 whose colours will wash. If Mr. Gladstone cannot get rid of 
 Lord John, he should go up to the Lords himself, or send 
 Osborne, or Cockburn. Without a debater, they '11 never get 
 Lord Derby's majority out of his hands. If some man of 
 weight and tact would set to, and devote a session to exposing 
 the real nature and character of Lord Derby, that distinguished 
 nobleman would gradually disappear in training stables. 
 
 But there have been not only incidental, but direct religious 
 feuds. The debate on Mr. G. H. i\Ioore's motion, on Tuesday, 
 raised the whole question of religious endowments ; and the 
 division taken, as it has been, in conjunction with the division 
 on the Nunneries Inspection motion, is likely very largely to 
 affect the position of the Government in Ireland. Lord John 
 Russell raised, with his usual tact, a special religious question, 
 in proving — eager cheers waiting on his every word from the 
 Opposition side of the House — that the Catholic priests of Ire- 
 land were the enemies of liberty (how Mr. Keogh must have 
 quaked!), and in showing that it would not do to endow them 
 (which was not the point) because they would be inclined to 
 oppose the Coalition — as if Mr. Keogh had not positively in- 
 formed him that all the Bishops approved of his (Mr. Keogh's) 
 acceptance of office. Lord John did not weaken his position 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, KO. 17. 155 
 
 in England by attacking the Roman Catholics, though he pro- 
 bably may have found, in his Durham letter experience, that 
 truths of the kind he talked on Tuesday had better be left to 
 the professional Tories ; but the recklessness of his lead in the 
 matter was this, that he could have resisted the motion, and 
 got it defeated, and kept his Government together without 
 repeating the Durham letter, and again estranging Ireland. 
 Tuesday was a Durham letter debate scene — a packed House. 
 Lord John with his elbows in his hands ; dead silence on the 
 Ministerial benches above and below the gangway ; and hur- 
 rahing cheers from the Opposition country party. While Lord 
 John was lifting his treble to demonstrate that the Roman 
 Catholic priests were the enemies of liberty, two gentlemen in 
 front of him were conspicuou-sly loud in their hear, hears ; and 
 sight of them should have been the comment on his logic. 
 They were Messrs. Naj)ier and Whiteside, spokesmen of the 
 University of Dublin, and of " Orange " society in Dublin ; 
 and perhaps, on the whole, the most blatant and intense Tories 
 of their era. Lord John, remembering that these gentlemen 
 had been in the Derby Ministry, might have asked himself 
 whether it was quite clear that Protestantism, as a churchy led 
 more directly than Popery, as a church, to liberty 1 But Lord 
 John has given up thinking ; having no office, he is out of 
 practice ; and so on Tuesday, he quietly "sold " all the Peelite 
 members of the Coalition, destroyed their gi'owing popularity 
 in Ireland, and put the Government in Ireland exactly where 
 the Russell Government was."^ Mr. Gladstone, they say, did 
 not like it ; but what can Mr. Gladstone do ? You cannot 
 have a cabinet council to disown a speech. You can, however, 
 have a cabinet council to repudiate a measure ; and, as we see, 
 Lord John has been obliged — one thought of Mr. Walpole 
 withdrawing his militia franchise — to intimate that, "in con- 
 sequence of other important business," he will not go on with 
 his Dockyard Disenfranchisement Bill. Rather odd, however, 
 for a " leader." More people than the present writer thought 
 of a parallel between Lord John and Mr. Walpole, on Thurs- 
 day, for the grin was general in the House, though the grin 
 did not aggravate into that audibleness which justifies the 
 scrupulous stenographer in recording " a laugh." Members of 
 the House have not yet realized the idea of Lord John having 
 become laughatable ; and, besides, " a laugh " is becoming 
 serious in public business, — as witness divers incidents, two or 
 three noted out of many. Mr. Disraeli was replying, late on 
 Tuesday, to Lord John Russell, about the Budget. " Mr. Dis- 
 raeli thought that the noble lord had treated his observations 
 in a very disingenuous spirit, and did not consider himself 
 
 * This was written, of course, before the publication of Lord Aber- 
 deen's correspondence with Mr. Monsell. 
 
156 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 
 
 bound to say, as the condition of postponement, that he would 
 oppose this particular motion. [An honourable member 
 laughed.] He supposed that the honourable gentleman who 
 had indulged them with that intellectual sneer would not 
 speak ; indeed, he advised him not to do so, but rather to adhere 
 to that particular style of oratory in which he was super- 
 eminent. (Laughter and cheers.) " Then observe the effect 
 which a laugh has upon Lord Derby's Lord Chancellor. This is 
 an occurrence taking place among the grave Lords in the 
 course of this week : — " Lord Campbell : Read the words of the 
 Act of Parliament ! Lord St. Leonards was understood to retort 
 — Did the noble and learned Lord mean to say he could 
 not state the effect of an Act of Parliament without reading 
 it ? (Laughter.) [Flis Lordship had taken the Act in his 
 hand, as though about to read from it, but, immediately on 
 hearing the laughter, he desisted. After a few inaudible sen- 
 tences, expressive of his opposition to the address, he resumed 
 his seat, and two or three minutes had only elapsed when he 
 walked out of the House.]"* Observing these results of non- 
 respectful hilarity, Mr. Gladstone might engage some one to 
 go off into uncontrollable merriment whenever Lord John's 
 elbows fall into Lord John's hands — for then the Cabinet is 
 invariably in danger — and Lord Aberdeen should train, — for 
 an imitation of Momus — with a Minister on each hand to hold 
 his sides, — whenever Lord Derby rises to talk chivalry at vene- 
 rable Red Tapers. He would find it better than getting into a 
 passion — which is Lord Clarendon's only forte and fails with 
 him. 
 
 Wanted, then, by the Cabinet — a Cervantes for Lord Derby. 
 What an effect would be produced in the Lords if this needed 
 individual were to give notice of this question : Whether the 
 noble Earl, whom I see in his place, will — with the batch of 
 Doctors — take Coventry in his way to Oxford 1 The Coalition 
 is standing on its dignity ; but, meanwhile, the laugh is getting 
 up against it : Mr. Disraeli is actually training a corps of jesters, 
 who think that they are serving the "Conservative" cause by 
 making the people merry over the strongest Government of 
 modern times. Mr. Disraeli laughed Peel out of place : and 
 may make Lord Aberdeen ridiculous, even in the eyes of Court ; 
 but it is not very clear, so far, that the policy is serving him, if 
 it be indeed true that he has given in, and is going off. Cer- 
 tainly he might as well be touring for the Asian mystery as sit- 
 ting still and looking helpless on the Opposition front bench : 
 dejure leader ; and de facto having to see Pakington, Walpole, 
 and Lord John Manners (the latter statesman with an amend- 
 ment in favour of dearf Piktureth) leading minority amend- 
 
 * Morning Chronicle Report. 
 
 t On a National Gallery Question. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 157 
 
 ments night after night. AVhy did not either Mr. Disraeli or one 
 of his colleagues take part in the Irish Church debate on Tues- 
 day? Was it because they thought they could add nothing to 
 Lord John's oration — believing that Lord John was, fro tern., 
 leader of the Tory and higher Protestant party? "Were they 
 afraid that if they commented on Lord John, Mr. Gladstone 
 might comment on them, and so set the Government right 
 again? Or because they foresaw "an Irish difficulty" roused 
 by that one speech which might curtail Mr. Disraeli's travels ? 
 There they sat, however, stolidly silent ; and enjoying Mr. 
 Bright's reply to Lord John. Mr. Bright seems to have hit on 
 his mission ; he is always replying to Lord John now ; and he 
 never did it better than on Tuesday. The Radicals have lately 
 made up their minds that there is no more hope in Lord John ; 
 that what is to come out of this Government is to come from 
 Mr. Gladstone ; and hence Mr. Bright is becoming unreserved 
 about the Ministerial leader — and Mr. Bright, in a state of un- 
 reserve about any particular man, is rather a formidable orator. 
 Mr. Bright is also aiming — very practically — at getting hold of 
 the Liberal Irish members ; and on Tuesday he combined his 
 objects — destroyed Lord John Russell in Ireland, and got furious 
 applause from the Celtic and Roman Catholic gentlemen below 
 the gangway on the opposition side — even clutching a cheer 
 now and then from the Ministerial Celtic and Roman Catholic 
 gentlemen, who like Keogh and detest Lucas, and are favour- 
 able to an equal distribution of Treasury patronage among 
 Irish and English of the hanger-on classes. Perhaps Mr. Bright 
 has no equal — it is his peculiar style — (illustrated in his Burke- 
 like Indian declamation last night) — in sneering invective, in 
 suggesting rather than in speaking contempt ; and his energetic 
 innuendos told wonderfully on Tuesday. His comparison be- 
 tween Ireland and Canada, between the principles of self- 
 government as insisted on for Canada, and the principle of 
 forcing an alien religion upon Ireland, as now actually defended 
 by Lord John Russell, was masterly and appropriate — was put- 
 ting an old controversy in a new light, effective as being that 
 in which the people could best see it ; and Mr. Bright, unlike 
 Lord John Russell, never forgets that there is an audience be- 
 yond the Club to be talked to, influenced, and governed. But 
 see the results of that splendid speech — eighty men voted for 
 the motion. Could there be a better proof of the idiotcy of 
 Radicalism, its ruinous want of organisation ? Some sixty or 
 seventy Irish members should certainly have voted for the 
 motion ; and would, but that Mr. Keogh has broken up the 
 Irish party, and that Mr. Moore took no pains, either through 
 constituencies in Ireland, or about the House in England, to 
 get pledges ; and, besides these, there are at least eighty 
 Radicals who, if led and officered and governed properly, would 
 
158 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 
 
 have been bound to be present on such a division, and, if pre- 
 sent, to vote with Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore is a very unpopular 
 man with members of all sorts — his own countrymen and 
 English Radicals ; and if you met men next day and asked 
 them why they had not voted, they would say, " the question 
 has no business in his hands." But ought not personal tactics 
 to be arranged beforehand 1 When Sir Henry Ward had charge 
 of the Irish Church question, the two kingdoms were beat up 
 for recruits ; when Mr. Roebuck put the notice on the paper 
 session after session (and never brought it on) the Anti-State 
 Church Association wrote and talked him and it up for months 
 before the expected day. This year the matter is incidentally 
 tumbled on ; and eighty loose men — present by accident — vote 
 in the minority. Are we getting less liberal as our age gets 
 more enlightened 1 Mr. Bright warned the noble Lord of one 
 thing in the course of the Durham-letter debates : let him pass 
 this measure, and he will have to give up the Irish Church. Is 
 this the proof of it ? The general election in Ireland turned 
 as much on this question as on any other, and here is the 
 result : Mr. Whiteside talking his vehement bigotry, in a stu- 
 pendous brogue, with an infuriated madman's gestures, to a 
 not very dissatisfied House ; Mr. Lucas cowering into modera- 
 tion, with a deprecatory voice, in the presence of a clearly un- 
 favourable assembly, and about twenty English Radicals fol- 
 lowing Mr. Bright, after one of the most superb debating 
 speeches ever delivered. And after the mischief — for the 
 question goes back, after such a division — Dublin resolves to 
 meet and protest, and to invite Mr. Moore over to bark his dis- 
 gust ; and the English Radicals find their solace in going about 
 to shake their heads at Lord John. " Did you read that speech 1 
 
 By' ! I'm hanged if he's not going to throw the Peelites 
 
 over, and try a coalition with Lord Derby ! " But there is good 
 out of the evil, if the Irish Liberals would but consent to see it. 
 If they fight the point in the House of Commons, they must 
 arrange for the House of Commons, and it is an English House 
 of Commons. Every one of the Irish members who spoke on 
 Tuesday did the cause a mischief : the House would listen to 
 no one, for the motion, but an English member, Mr. Bright. 
 The Irish members must fight the battle through the English 
 members ; for whatever Irish public opinion demands can only 
 be carried by getting English public opinion in favour of it. 
 And, after such a division, not in the House, but in the 
 country, what is the use of meeting in Ireland 1 publishing 
 tremendous " leading articles" in Ireland ? Ireland is convinced 
 already; it is English public opinion that has to be influenced ; 
 and there must be meetings and newspapers in England ; and 
 Mr. Bright's advice must be taken. Let the Irish members (Mr. 
 Keogh might go back to them if they 'd unite) devote their 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 159 
 
 attention to this one question. If they did, they would carry 
 it. Lord John's speech has to be answered, not in Ireland, but 
 in England, where he is supposed to have talked truths ; and 
 the answer is the last sentence of Mr. Moore's rather spirited 
 reply — this question, "Was there a single question afiecting 
 civil and religious liberty that the Catholic representatives and 
 the Catholic clergy had not supported, and that the represen- 
 tatives and the clergy of the Irish Established Church had not 
 strenuously opposed V 
 
 It was pleasanter talking on Wednesday, when the position 
 of Mr. Macaulay in Great Britain was measured in a great way. 
 On a Wednesday the House and the committees are sitting at 
 once, and the building is filled with scattered M.P.'s — some at 
 work, many looking at those who are at work, but more loiter- 
 ing about the lobbies and corridors, picking up old or new ac- 
 quaintance and feeling for public opinion. About three, on 
 Wednesday, one was loitering about, too ; for the talk in the 
 House was not interesting* — on a Wednesday it seldom is — and 
 one could pick up members' opinion, which is as important as 
 public opinion. You were walking along the committee lobby, 
 wondering which ''room" you would take next, when, as you 
 paused uncertain, you were bumped against by somebody. He 
 begged your pardon, and rushed on, and you looked to see who 
 it was : a member — a stout member : a man you couldn't 
 conceive in a run : and yet he's running " like mad." You are 
 still staring at him when two more men trot past you, one on 
 each side ; and they are members, too. You are very puzzled, 
 and see the door close to you — " Members' Entrance" above it 
 — dashed open, five members dash from it, and plunge furiously 
 down the lobby. Why, what can be the matter ? More doors 
 open ; more members rush out ; members are tearing past you 
 from all points, in one direction — towards the House. Then 
 wigs and gowns appear ; they tell you, with happy faces, their 
 committees have adjourned ; and then come a third class — the 
 gentlemen of the press, hilarious. Why, what 's the matter? 
 Matter ! Macaulay is up ; and all the members are oflT to hear 
 him. You join the runners in a moment, and are in the gallery 
 to see the senators who had the start of you perspiring into 
 their places. It was an announcement one hadn't heard for 
 years ; and the passing the word " Macaulay 's up," emptied 
 committee rooms now, as of old it emptied clubs. It was true ; 
 he was up, and in for a long speech ; not a mere " spurt," but an 
 oration. He was in a new place, standing in the second row 
 (above the Treasury bench) from the table, and looking and 
 sounding all the better for the elevation and the clearer 
 atmosphere for orators which must be found in that little re- 
 
 * Subject— Lord Hotham's Judge Exclusion Bill. 
 
160 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 
 
 move from the green boxes. The old voice, the old manners, 
 and the old style — glorious speaking. Well prepared, carefully 
 elaborated, confessedly essayish ; but spoken with perfect art 
 and consummate management ; not up and down, see-saw, 
 talking off a speech, but the grand conversation of a man of 
 the world, confiding his learning and his recollections, and his 
 logic to a party of gentlemen, and just raising his voice enough 
 to be heard through the room. That is as you heard him when 
 you got in ; but then he was only opening and waiting for his 
 audience. As the House filled, which it did with marvellous 
 rapidity, he got prouder and more oratorical ; and then he 
 poured out his speech with rapidity, increasing after every 
 sentence, till it became a torrent of the richest words, carrying 
 his hearers with him into enthusiasm (yes, for dry as was the 
 subject he gave it grandeur by looking at it from the grand and 
 historical point of view), and yet not leaving them time to 
 cheer. A torrent of words — that is the only description of 
 Macaulay's style when he has warmed into speed : and such 
 words ! — why it wasn't four o'clock in the afternoon, lunch 
 hardly digested, and yet the quiet reserved English gentlemen 
 collected there to hear the celebrated orator were as wild with 
 delight as an Opera house after Grisi at ten. You doubt it 1 
 See the division ; and before Mr. Macaulay had spoken you 
 might have safely bet fifty to one that Lord Hotham would have 
 carried his bill. After that speech the bill was not thrown, but 
 pitched, out. Speeches seldom do affect measures ; and yet 
 this speech will have altered British policy, on a great question, 
 and — don't forget that — on a Wednesday, in a day sitting ! 
 People said, when it was over, that it was superb, and so on, 
 and one began to have a higher opinion of the House of Com- 
 mons, though it is queerly " led," seeing that if the Macaulay 
 class of minds would bid for leadership, they would get it, and 
 that, perhaps, the Lord Johns only get it, at present, by a sort 
 of moral justice, because they work for it. But it wasn't all 
 congratulation. Mr. Macaulay had rushed through his oration 
 of forty minutes with masterly vigour ; and, looking at his 
 massive chest and enormous head, you couldn't be surprised. 
 That is the sort of man who would go through whatever he 
 undertook. Yet the doubts about his health, which arise when 
 we meet him in the street, (he never meets anybody,) — when 
 you take advantage of his sphinx-like reverie, 
 
 " Staring right on, with calm, eternal eyes," 
 
 to study the sickly face — would be confirmed, by a close inspec- 
 tion, on Wednesday. The great orator was trembling, when he 
 sat down : the excitement of a triumph — the massive head, 
 notwithstanding — overcame him, and he had scarcely the self- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 17. 161 
 
 possession to acknowledge the eager praises which were offered 
 bj the Ministers and others, in his neighbourhood. Evidently 
 he had reasons for being as quiet as Gibbon was, in the House ; 
 and in this case, too, no doubt, we must think enough will 
 have been done for fame and for our pleasure, if the History 
 is finished. 
 
162 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 18. 
 
 No. 18. 
 
 June 11. 
 This supremely dull parliamentary week was to have been 
 relieved last night by interpellations on the Turkish question ; 
 in the Lords at the instance of Lord Clanricarde, and in the Com- 
 mons, on the motion of Mr. Layard, whose debM was expected 
 with the interest which uncontrollable reading and visits to 
 the British Museum compel ; but the " public service " had 
 to be consulted ; and as Admiral Dundas had sailed from Malta 
 for the Dardanelles, for reasons which nobody in this self- 
 governed country knew anything about — ^not even Mr. Layard, 
 the only man in the House who can swear to the identity of 
 Menschikoff — it was agreed to postpone all interrogatories 
 about the matter, and to leave "business" to progress as it 
 could. The Lords wasted three or four hours in lacerating 
 Mr. Keogh, because, notwithstanding indiscreet speeches in 
 Ireland, he readily accepted the offer to join an English 
 Government ; and the Commons busily employed five hours in 
 getting "stages" of Bills on — no doubt serving the nation, 
 certainly not amusing anybody. 
 
 The other Eastern question — the Government India Bill — has 
 not become very engaging as yet. The speaking on Monday 
 and Thursday was good, but hardly interesting. Mr. Blackett, 
 who resumed the debate on Thursday, could not make a bad 
 speech ; but he has not yet so far trained his cleverness into 
 the ways of the House as to talk in that relieved style which 
 gratifies attention, — incidentally convincing, but first of all, 
 interesting. Mr. John Phillimore, who resumed on Monday, 
 was full of knowledge, which he poured out ceaselessly for three 
 hours ; — Sir Charles Wood not only makes, but is the cause of 
 long speeches. But Mr. Phillimore is too forensic and rheto- 
 rical as yet, and must hit on a lower key if he wishes to 
 become a parliamentary personage — which clearly he does. 
 By-and-by, we shall get into real debates on India : for a 
 rarity, we shall have a parliamentary discussion in which 
 many unpledged votes will depend on the speaking. But up 
 to this time it is prologue, and all the speaking, after 
 Mr. Bright's crushing reply to Sir Charles Wood, which de- 
 layed the bringing in of the Bill, was a mistake. Sir J. W. 
 Hogg was palpably premature in his elaborate defence of the 
 body which he has so long and so astutely controlled ; but, 
 apart from that point, the defensive oration, as a speech to the 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 18. 163 
 
 jury, with that earnestness which would distinguish a distin- 
 guished counsel pleading for himself, was worthy of the cause 
 and the occasion, and, had the House been otherwise than 
 nearly empty, might have produced some effect to balance the 
 conclusions accepted by a large majority from Mr. Bright. 
 The House was empty ; it was emptied by Sir Charles Wood, 
 filled only partially for Mr. Bright, and has been kept empty 
 up to last night, ever since. Mr. Phillimore spoke for three 
 hours, all about Sir Charles's 150,000,000 fellow subjects — and 
 the 150,000,000 ought to know of these indications of interest 
 in them — to about thirty men ; Mr. Blackett to about fifty ; Mr. 
 Danby Seymour to about twenty, including six Ministers ; 
 among them, Sir William Molesworth, as usual, asleep ; Sir J. 
 Hogg to about fifty ; Mr. Hume to the same number. On 
 Monday there was no excuse for this slack attendance, but on 
 Thursday there was ; for wasn't it the Ascot night, and didn't 
 the Opera-lobby telegraph inform the loungers in those de- 
 lightful precincts that it was only Wishy, or only Washy ; and 
 who would go and hear Washy in reply to Wishy 1 And it 
 should be understood that even those who did attend didn't 
 pay attention. Thus Mr. Hume spoke from his usual corner, 
 and immediately below him, on the Treasury bench, sat Mr. 
 Strutt and Mr. Robert Lowe ; and the two ofiBcials were so re- 
 miss as to chat in utter indifference of the orator who was 
 gesticulating over their heads, so that Mr. Hume had to stop, 
 losing his temper for the first time in his life, and to request 
 them to leave their seats, causing a great scandal, tempered by 
 much grinning, in which Mr. Strutt excelled. As to Mr. Danby 
 Seymour, no one listened to him, and when Mr. Blackett, at a 
 later hour in the evening, apologised for and withdrew Mr. 
 Seymour's charge, that the Globe and Morning Chronicle 
 were paid for their friendship by the Government, the House 
 was not aware that any such accusation had been made. But 
 they liked the news and the apology, and laughed at the ap- 
 propriateness of Mr. Blackett apologising for such an insi- 
 nuation. 
 
 Other matters have interfered with the Indian debates. 
 The season is at its height, and the Commons' House is full of 
 young nobles who must dance, and dine, and do other things 
 in the season ; and then it is always a slack week during the 
 Ascot races. The races ought to have accounted to Mr. Cob- 
 den for the " No House," — practically a count-out against Mr. 
 Cobden. The young nobles were all down on the Heath, and 
 the middle-aged gentlemen of business who came down to 
 Westminster, on Tuesday, to kill time between the hours when 
 they had finished all their letters and interviews, and the hours 
 when they could dine, did not need much persuasion from the 
 Whips to go away again. Who wanted a House on that beau- 
 
 M 2 
 
164 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 18. 
 
 tiful evening ? No one ! And the nation gained by tlie loss 
 of a day. Mr. Cobden, with his Pegu motion, would have use- 
 lessly raised the Indian question on an incidental point ; and 
 as to Mr. Isaac Butt, with his motion for inquiry into the in- 
 timidating qualities of Irish priests, the discussion of such a 
 question would have occasioned new mischief in religious con- 
 tentions, which no letters of Lord Aberdeen, in the way of 
 snubs of Lord John Russell, would be able to allay. Mr. Cob- 
 den would not, or could not, see these points ; and with his 
 usual tact, he confessed openly to his silly vexation, on Wed- 
 nesday, and made complaints which everj^body, and particularly 
 our principal door-keeper. Lord Charles Russell, heartily 
 laughed at. It was a curious study, that evening between 
 three and four, in the members' vestibule, to watch the man- 
 oeuvres which so happily resulted. It is a great mistake to 
 suppose the Government alone accomplished the " No House." 
 Mr. Hayter was warmly aided by the Opposition; even Mr. 
 Butt did not look, as he kept a respectable distance from the 
 door, very anxious to provoke the inevitable war of bigots. 
 Nobody, in fact, wanted to go in, but Lord Dudley Stuart, who 
 had a police motion on the paper, in obedience to some of 
 those wretched parochial importunities to which every metro- 
 politan member is exposed ; but Mr. Cobden, who had a vast pile 
 of papers under his arm, and was ready, after an evening's 
 reading, to turn India inside out ; and Mr. Hume, who dreads 
 a count-out with all his soul — for what can Mr. Hume do — go 
 to a casino ? — when there is no House ? These three gentle- 
 men kept close to the door, expostulating with the guardians, 
 who had got their orders, and had prorogued Parliament in 
 defiance not only of all common sense, which is nothing, but ; 
 of all the House's rules, which ought to be a great deal, and 
 might cause their dismissal, if Lord John, who has nothing 
 else to do, were asked to go into the matter; and, of course, 
 the body of members, who held back, determining not to be 
 counted, enjoyed hugely the nervous group — haughtily indig- 
 nant metropolitan member, expostulating Mr. Cobden, alarmed 
 Mr. Hume, and sulky Mr. Williams* — chief keeper of that post 
 which is the opposite of St. Peter's. The strangers loitering 
 about wondered : this constitutional machinery was new to the 
 enlightened Britons who, perhaps, could not understand why, 
 as one could see the reporters' gallery full, the Speaker should 
 insist on paying Lord Dudley Stuart the compliment of an 
 attendance of at least forty — mystical number in senatorial 
 architecture. But the innocent strangers must, indeed, have 
 been shocked at the joyous yell which burst out when Mr. 
 Williams dashed the door open and appalled Mr. Cobden by| 
 
 * The door-keeper. { 
 
 i 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 18. 165 
 
 tke announcement, " Who' goes home ? " A boys'-school cheer 
 on the news of an unexpected half-holiday is the only parallel ; 
 but there was this difference, that the shout of gentlemen who 
 needn't have spent an hour there if they didn't like, was 
 mainly called forth by malicious satisfaction at the sight of 
 the humbled Stuart, the ghastly and indignant Cobden, and 
 the perplexed and melancholy Hume. It was wonderful to 
 observe the feelings which succeeded after the laughter was 
 open, and men had to begin to think, their routine plans being 
 bouleversed, what they should do with their evening. A large 
 number didn't know ; and walked off to their clubs to inquire 
 of Jawkins, whom they were so sure to see there. But a large 
 party, led by Serjeant Murphy, was soon formed. "By 
 Jove," said the Serjeant, with his usual happy inspiration, "let 
 us run down the river and eat whitebait ! " (Loud cries of hear, 
 hear!) And so fifty senators soon filled a steamer, and in less 
 than an hour were at whitebait, and brown bread and butter, 
 and cold punch — criticising the career of Cobden, and wonder- 
 ing at the peculiar tastes of Hume. What could the constitu- 
 tional waiters of Blackwall and Greenwich have thought of the 
 Imperial Parliament ? 
 
 The Oxford Installation has had something to do with the 
 dulness of the week ; certainly in the Lords, where they had 
 nothing until last night, and as certainly in the Commons, 
 where Mr. Disraeli is not at his post — he only looked in for an 
 hour on Thursday, but, of course, showed last night, with the 
 new dignity caught from the under-graduates' cheers — cheers 
 he would be prouder of than of any " 'Changes." In fact, there 
 is only one thing people who take Parliament as their amuse- 
 ment have looked forward to, since the publication of the 
 Aberdeen and Monsell letters — Mr. Disraeli's criticism on the 
 Cabinet squabble and Lord John's new position. Undoubtedly 
 he has his chance now of a revenge on the Coalition which 
 overthrew him ; for they have been terribly weakened during 
 the last fortnight. First, the symptoms of vacillation in our 
 Eastern policy; next, Sir Charles Wood's insufficient measure 
 and disastrous speech; thirdly, Mr. Gladstone's (perhaps one 
 should say more strictly, Mr. James Wilson's) financial failure 
 in the city; and lastly, the revelation the Aberdeen and 
 Monsell correspondence afforded of Cabinet dissensions on a 
 vital point with every British Government — their Irish policy. 
 Why should Mr. Disraeli spare Lord John? His own friends 
 do not: the contemptuous insubordination rendering the long 
 retention of the leadership by a man whose moral authority is 
 gone, utterly out of the question. But the Peelites must not 
 calculate that Lord John will be sacrificed to their vanity ; Mr. 
 Disraeli has shown that he understands Lord Aberdeen's 
 blunders at Constantinople, and he will show, in due time, that 
 
166 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 18. 
 
 he has at last mastered the complexity of the reduction of 
 the debt scheme, which has so miserably disappointed Mr. 
 Gladstone, and as completely and strangely fulfilled Mr. 
 Disraeli's haphazard predictions. Then Sir Charles Wood's 
 speech — is it at all likely that will escape 1 Or the dockyard 
 disfranchisement scheme? which, it turns out, was Sir James 
 Graham's pure suggestion — to be regarded as a test of the ten- 
 dencies of a Government pledged to Parliamentary " Reform." 
 If it be true that the Cabinet is only kept together by the 
 Queen's entreaty that the Turkish difficulty be not more per- 
 plexed by a "crisis" at home, the best thing Ministers can do is 
 to leave Mr. Disraeli unanswered, — or to put up Mr. Osborne to 
 reply without defending. But the sooner the Cabinet is re- 
 arranged the better : and if Lord John thinks, as Mr. Edward 
 Ellice tells him, that his secession would destroy the Govern- 
 ment, — that he can re-gather a party, and that Mr. Gladstone 
 has none yet — he had better try, if only for his own sake, with 
 the least possible delay. The nation would make him a Pont 
 d'Or : and St. Nepomuck befriend him in the passage. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 19. 167 
 
 No. 19. 
 
 June 18. 
 KoBODY can regret more sincerely than Mr. Keogh, that Mr. 
 Keogh is the parliamentary hero of this week, and is likely to 
 be the hero of next week. His career and his political charac- 
 ter have been forced on the attention of the world, and neither 
 are in a condition to render him assured of a happy issue. 
 The politician who commenced his political life at the Carlton, 
 and is continuing it at the Reform, having intermediately 
 passed across the stage as leader of the Irish Brigade, is in the 
 position of one suspect to all parties ; and when an unlucky 
 accident forces a public investigation into so sinuous a life, it 
 becomes a matter of difficulty to induce the careless public to 
 comprehend the minute motives which compelled the tortuosity, 
 and which, in all the vacillations, preserved the " personal 
 honour" — which is always assumed to include the political. 
 The public will not analyze ; and if it is insisted that the pub- 
 lic should think at all about Mr. Keogh, the public necessarily 
 comes to the conclusion that the man who started as a " Con- 
 servative Catholic," then became a Democratic Ultramontanist, 
 and is finishing as law officer of the Government, which is 
 neither Conservative, nor Catholic, Democratic, nor Ultramon- 
 tane, and which positively refuses to do any one of the things 
 Mr. Keogh declares in " Dod" that he wil} do, and has declared 
 out of doors would have to be done by any Government he 
 joined — and who completes these inconsistencies in the short 
 period between 1847 and 1853 — may be a very clever, but can- 
 not be a very reliable, or, politically, very lofty personage. 
 There is a question of the day about Mr. Keogh, and that is 
 the way it is likely to be answered. On Thursday he defied 
 the Lords to the scrutiny ; and as they were not very busy with, 
 other affairs, they readily accepted the challenge ; and though 
 Lords Eglinton and Derby are in the ridiculous position of hav- 
 ing undertaken to damage the character of a man to whom 
 their own agents offered office, when they thought he could be 
 useful, they have the resource of repudiating the agency, and 
 are not likely to halt in their malignant commission of inquiry ; 
 for if they ruin Mr. Keogh, they just now deal a heavy blow 
 against the Government of Lord Aberdeen. 
 
 In the House of Lords Mr. Keogh ran great risks in having 
 his character ventilated. It is heavy odds, half-a-dozen Earls 
 against a poor Q.C., particularly when the Q.C. has exposed 
 himself on various points to the sneers of Peers who were never 
 
168 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 19. 
 
 tempted. There is a different code for Peers and needy law 
 officers. For instance, the Duke of Northumberland was loudly 
 cheering the Earl of Derby, when the Earl of Derby was talk- 
 ing the chivalry of the question about Mr. Keogh. But, sup- 
 posing all Lord Westmeath's assertions about Mr. Keogh are 
 correct, and granting that he is a political Proteus, how venial 
 are his errors paralleled with the infamy of the Derby Ad- 
 miralty doings in the dockyards ! But the old Marquis of 
 Westmeath did not prove his case ; it was shattered to atoms 
 in the course of half an hour's energetic common sense from 
 the Duke of Newcastle ; and thus, two nights' debates in the 
 Upper House have resulted in the putting on record, and the 
 supporting Lord Derby's opinion, that the appointment of Mr. 
 Keogh was an " unfortunate" one, and Lord Eglinton's opinion 
 that the appointment was the " least reputable" one. In the 
 Commons, it was very pleasant to hear Lord John reappear in 
 his fine old character — " a real friend when you're in trouble," 
 and stand up so heartily for Mr. Keogh — in noble forgetfulness 
 that through Mr. Keogh he had been memorably insulted before 
 all Europe by Lord Aberdeen. Every now and then, of late 
 years, there is a renaissance about Lord John ; and it is always 
 when his manliness is evoked for a slandered colleague. He 
 is a great party man : all of his party are his personal 
 friends ; and he would die for a colleague. The finest 
 speech he has made these ten years was his magnificent 
 burst, two days before he left office as Premier, in behalf of 
 Lord Clarendon, then attacked (and on capital grounds) by 
 this same Lord Naas, who is now Mr. Keogh's assailant, and 
 whom Lord John compared, in consideration that he was 
 of the Irish propertied classes, and that Lord Clarendon's 
 government had carried Ireland safely through a rebellion, 
 to a skulker in the hold, who, when the fight was over, 
 crept up on deck to criticise the captain. The same un- 
 expected vigour was exhibited by Lord John on Thursday: 
 and in his generous vindication, his contemptuous looks at 
 Lord Naas, and his sneers at Lord Eglinton and Lord Derby, 
 no one could have detected any trace of those feelings which 
 must always be in Lord John's inmost mind when he thinks of 
 Mr. Keogh — the man whose cleverness and energy made the 
 debates on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill destructive to the 
 Whigs, the bill itself a dead letter and a farce, and a perpetual 
 reproach to its author — the man, too, who had humiliated Lord 
 John the other day by wringing from Lord Aberdeen an apology 
 which was an insult to Lord John Russell. Of course, the 
 Government benches cheered fast and furiously — it was delight- 
 ful to them to find Lord John in such a splendid condition for 
 fight ; and then, the spirit of party survives all coalitions, 
 and so long as a Whig is left, he will be found hallooing and 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 19. 16^ 
 
 hurrahing whenever there is a chance of seeing a Tory kicked ; 
 and Lord John's kicks at Lord Eglinton reminded them of good 
 old days, when they had both measures and men. On the 
 whole, therefore, Mr. Keogh obtained a complete personal tri- 
 umph : and it was no wonder, seeing that against his own prac- 
 tised tact were pitted no more startling antagonists than a 
 clumsy stout-minded young lord, and the ungrammatical and 
 deplorable W. B. There is no doubt that the House was glad 
 of the result, and that the congratulations Mr. Keogh got in 
 the lobby were hearty and sincere. There is not a more popular 
 man in the whole club — the House of Commons ; as, having 
 been in every party, his personal acquaintance is, of course, 
 extensive ; and, wherever he may happen to be in politics, he 
 doesn't lose the friends he makes. Every one understands all 
 about his career : they don't think him a Bayard ; but they 
 think, if he had been born to a great fortune he would have 
 been a far more respectable statesman than Lord Derby : and, 
 considering that it 's the business of the country, and not of 
 the House, to reward political virtue, and punish political vice, 
 they fancy Mr. Keogh and Ireland may be left to arrange 
 with one another, and, meanwhile, like his society, are glad to 
 see him getting a handsome salary, hope he '11 soon get a safe 
 permanent appointment, and, it 's a pity, but it 's a fact, would 
 rather sit and hear Keogh for five days than Whiteside, or 
 Napier, or other consistent bores, for five minutes. When Cato 
 went down to the House at Rome he was going to an assembly 
 which was in contact with the nation, and was national — Ro- 
 man nationality meaning something sublime ; and when Cata 
 walked to his place the young conscript fathers of 40 looked at 
 him with awe, no doubt ; but the British House of Commons is 
 not in contact with the nation, is the result of a limited suffrage, 
 and shapes necessarily into a club, and has no high opinion of 
 the nation, which it buys and sells ; and in the British House 
 of Commons, therefore, Cato would be counted out, and wouldn't 
 be reported. Keogh, leading in the smoking-room, would set 
 all the young conscript fathers, just in from Hampton races, 
 roaring at Cato. And that being so, the Eglintons and White- 
 sides, who give themselves airs, and talk Catoism about a no- 
 toriously villanous public life, talk very palpable nonsense. 
 Mr. Disraeli's is, perhaps, the right view : Mr. Keogh was an 
 agreeable clever man ; and Mr. Disraeli could not see what 
 obstacle there was to his acting in the same Government with 
 Mr. Keogh. Thus, if Mr. Disraeli sees a vice in the Coalition, 
 it is a coalition of dull dogs. Were it really a coalition of " all 
 the talents" he would admire it, for in that case he would not 
 be left out. 
 
 Another bearable debate was on Tuesday, on the Ballot, 
 when other Lord Naases used a similar argument — that it is 
 un-English to get at the truth. Lord Naas blamed Mr. Keogh 
 
170 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 19. 
 
 because he had betrayed confidential communications in his 
 own defence : and Mr. Sidney Herbert blamed Mr. Berkeley, 
 because it was suggested that secret voting would get at the 
 true opinions of the people of England ; and, if an un-English 
 system, would at least be preferable to the too British system 
 of selling conscience for a few shillings and a day's drunken- 
 ness — the great characteristic of the existing electoral system, 
 and of which the upholders of our wonderful Constitution are 
 justly jealous. Mr. Berkeley made a most amusing speech. 
 True, the question, as he put it, was how we can remedy gene- 
 ral national corruption ; but he had to be heard, to keep an 
 audience a little after dinner time, and this is the British and 
 not a Roman Senate, and he was obliged to be amusing. It is 
 no use, he, an old and clubable member of the club knows, 
 adopting what Mr. Cuffy called the "integrity dodge" in 
 politics. Yirtuous indignation is not his forte, and so he 
 treated the question of national corruption in a light, pleasant 
 style, which did not drive away the easy moralists — the mem- 
 bers — until he had done, when, of course, they rushed from Sir 
 John Shelley, who doesn't quite understand the club yet, and 
 accordingly talks at his constituents — who must be delighted to 
 see their member so active in the House, and who are of course 
 honoured by his reputation as a first-class bore. Perhaps, as 
 the country is to settle the question of corruption, sterner talk 
 would, in the end, answer better than Mr. Berkeley's jovial and 
 careless flippancy ; but as the purists seem to like democrats 
 born among the aristocracy, and are no doubt convinced that 
 Henry Berkeley holds exactly that moral position which 
 enables him with efiect to teach the people how to live, it was 
 his business to show his wit — which he did — and his wit is 
 very good — ilfaut etre homme hlase avant d'etre liomme politique 
 — and as Mr. Henry Berkeley, who is familiar with the tone of 
 the governing classes, must have a high opinion of the demo- 
 cracy which worships those classes — sneers at the House of 
 Lords come well from a son and brother and uncle to earls — it 
 is easily conceivable that his bluff cynicism tells immensely on 
 the House in June, when people are beginning to be weary of 
 the Budget. It was hardly a good debate on the Ballot, for it 
 was too argumentative, when all that was wanted was piquant 
 illustration ; and, on the whole, Mr. Berkeley's was the best 
 and most serviceable speech. He was happy in the accident 
 which left reply to no more important personages than the 
 Secretary-at-War and the Lord Advocate (of the Lord knows 
 what). Mr. Sidney Herbert is an elegantly feeble statesman, 
 who reproduces the commonplaces of conversation and ortho- 
 dox books with careful memory and in a nice voice ; and hav- 
 ing an immense property, and being a contingent Peer, his 
 teasing but compact twaddle is invariably listened to with 
 deference — nay, on Tuesday, when his plagiarisms of Sidney 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 19. 171 
 
 Smith on Ballot were so adroit as to be literal — with great 
 "cheers and laughter." But to the enlightened strangers, who 
 were not bound to be well bred towards a statesman with 
 £30,000 a year, it was painful hearing his speech, for probably 
 more impertinent nonsense was never talked — it should be 
 understood that Sidney Herbert quoted Sidney Smith only at 
 dreary intervals, when the quotations specked, so as to show 
 the Boeothian profundity of the parentheses. The greater part 
 of an hour he devoted to showing that it was a delusion to 
 suppose that the Ballot would really be a secret system ; his 
 argument was, that every man's vote would be known. Mr. 
 Cobden was in a hurry and nervous, and was intense on his own 
 crotchets, or he might have annihilated the whole speech by the 
 simple retort — if so, if the Ballot would make no practical 
 change, why not let us have it 1 The other Ministerial speech 
 was, in a different way, more absurd. Out of respect to Lord 
 John, no doubt a " leader," and opposed to the Ballot, only two 
 Ministers who agreed with him spoke ; there appeared a tacit 
 understanding that the Radicals of the Coalition were to be 
 discreet and quiet. Sir William Molesworth accordingly going 
 to asleep, and snoring audibly through Mr. Herbert's wisdom ; 
 Mr. Bernal Osborne sitting out the debate as spectator on the 
 back benches of the Peers' gallery, where he was able to enjoy 
 private cachination when Sir Robert Peel made the amicable 
 reference to the "eccentric member for Middlesex;" Mr. 
 Bethell imitating Sir William as well as he could, but being 
 active minded, not doing it very well ; Sir Alexander Cockburn 
 taking refuge in the smoking-room, chatting with congenial 
 Mr. Keogh, both of them turning up in time to record their 
 opinions practically that Lord John Russell had talked non- 
 sense. But the Lord Advocate ! He was evidently put up, 
 with faith in his powers, by Lord John. He rose with Sir 
 Robert Peel ; but the House would have the baronet and not 
 the lawyer, and he had to wait ; and then he got a hearing, 
 and straightway proceeded to pour out fluent futilities in an 
 abominable forensic way — further developing his incapacity for 
 House of Commons position, in not only not adopting House of 
 Commons style, but in making a set speech, which might have 
 been made last year, ten years ago, or next year — which had no 
 reference to the current debate, contained no reply to Peel, 
 and was utterly disconnected from the events of the year 
 and the arguments of the day. Lord John hear, beared : Mr. 
 Gladstone, just come in in very full dress from an evening 
 party, did so too : Mr. Gladstone is conscientious, and, having 
 been absent all night, thought it was his business, as an " in," 
 to cheer whoever might happen to be up : but the rhetorical 
 Mr. Moncrieff was, nevertheless, a conspicuous failure, and 
 had foolishly displayed to a full House his third-rate nature, 
 
172 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 19. 
 
 which, well concealed, might have been talked of as"second-rate 
 — the which would be reputation for a Lord Advocate. His ar- 
 gument was the stale one, the only novelty being an unparalleled 
 loud bow-wowy delivery of it, that a voter for a member of 
 Parliament exercised a public trust akin to that of the member 
 when he comes to vote for men and measures. Lord John 
 Russell repeated this impudent sophistry ; and Lord John, and 
 the Lord Advocate, and the Secretary at "War, spoke as if it 
 were assumed that the question was a mere abstract question ; 
 as if, at this moment, the public trust of a vote was exercised 
 conscientiously, — as if the people was universally an honest 
 people, — and as if it was taken for granted by everybody that 
 the country was a remarkably conscientious and free country, 
 and national ruin would come if men were to "skulk" (Lord 
 John's word) from the profession of their political opinions ; it 
 being, to Lord John's mind, more manly to be bullied and 
 bribed than to be secretive, and more hypocritical not to tell 
 how you voted than to vote against your convictions. But this 
 twaddly triad was not well answered. Mr. Bright certainly 
 crushed Mr. Sidney Herbert's assumption that we had " pro- 
 gressed" in public spirit, and that there were no more Dukes of 
 Newcastle doing what they liked with their own, by a detailed 
 reading to the House of the famous Londonderry correspond- 
 ence about the County of Down, and Mr. Bright would have 
 gone on to make a splendid speech, as usual, if there had been 
 time ; but it was one in the morning, and the young Lords' and 
 old Lords' retainers, whom he had insulted by divulging the 
 truths of the county system which sustained them, were noisy 
 and restive, and Mr. Bright is getting cautious, and has lost his 
 old partiality for talking amid Tory yells and hootings, and so 
 he closed abruptly, and his speech stands as a truncated oration 
 addressed only to one part of the question. Mr. Gobden's was 
 an inexpressibly unwise speech : in every particular a mistake ; 
 but one specimen suffices. His peroration was a declaration 
 that there was no cure for bribery but the ballot ; and he 
 would, consequently, oppose an extension of the suffrage if the 
 ballot did not accompany it. That is Mr. Cobden's faith in the 
 masses of England ! It is a revelation of his real, undoubtedly 
 not Radical, nature. The accidents of the question of free 
 trade made Mr. Cobden a popular leader : but he never had 
 any business in connexion with the working classes. Essentially 
 a middle-class man, and a political economist, not a politician, 
 he has no sympathy whatever with the masses, and, in fact, 
 heartily at once fears and contemns them. And other quasi 
 Democrats talk from the same point of view. Extension of the 
 suffrage is asked on one ground, because it is prudent to make 
 scoundrel constituencies so numerous that they would be too 
 many to buy, and would, consequently, have no temptation to 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 19. 173 
 
 dishonesty ; and in the same way, the Ballot, which is simply a 
 machinery to protect the impressionable, is asked because it 
 would prevent bribery — the calculation being that when you are 
 not sure of the vote you won't pay a price for it. Mr. S. Herbert 
 answered that queerly for a bold Briton, proud of his nation — 
 " Why," said he, " that is not sound ; for when a gentleman 
 wanted to get into Parliament, he 'd make a bargain with the 
 voters, and pay them only on condition that he was returned, 
 so that corruption would be increased, and you would not 
 only have men bribed, as now, but you would add another 
 iniquitous system, by which it would be the interest of 
 every man bribed to canvass and offer bribes for the votes of 
 others." How much this sort of reckless and foolish talk 
 injures the cause of British democracy, may be ascertainable 
 by-and-by ; but let us hope it is exceptional talk, and that 
 there is left a school of Liberals who do not believe, because 
 there is a large percentage of scamps in the towns, and of pol- 
 troons in the counties, that therefore there is not a true and 
 pure mass among the people, who would compel good govern- 
 ment in England, without the protection of the ballot-box. 
 Sir Robert Peel made a speech for the Ballot, which would 
 justify a revolution : but Sir Robert's orations are only amus- 
 ing, not important ; he is a droll, not a statesman. Proprietor 
 of Tamworth, he despises corruption : and he thinks that the 
 landed interest need not be afraid of the Ballot, because " pro- 
 perty, sir, will always have its influence." In other words, if 
 you buy up a place, and every voter is your tenant, you 're sure 
 to have the majority. But that 's not altogether Sir Robert's 
 point of view about the Ballot; he knows that his demure 
 brother — it is the fraternity of Duke Robert and Henry Beau- 
 clerc — votes against the Ballot, and that is enough to ensure 
 Sir Robert's vote /or. As Coleridge said of Don Quixote and 
 Sancho Panza, tnat each was the half of a perfect man, so it 
 may be remembered, that if the natures of Robert and Frede- 
 rick Peel were conjoined, we should have a perfect statesman. 
 Separated, each is afflictingly incomplete : Frederick all reason : 
 —some one asked once if he was the head of the family, and 
 was answered, No, he is only the brains — and Robert all pas- 
 sion ; the steam boiler in one place, and the wheels and cranks 
 in the other, motionless and resultless for want of connexion 
 with the steam. Sir Robert is the greater success of the two 
 in the House ; he is a " character," and has a recognised posi- 
 tion, succeeding, in some degree, to the now-silent place of the 
 decaying Sibthorpe. He is an 'independent member;" that 
 is, no one knows how he '11 vote until they see him in the lobby. 
 He occasionally joins the standard of the Earl of Derby ; but he 
 has no particular rule in politics, beyond that of balancing the 
 Peel interest by always plumping against his brother. He is a 
 
174 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 19. 
 
 Liberal Conservative : and he understands that to mean — voting 
 to-day with the Whigs, and to-morrow with the Tories : occa- 
 sionally disgressing in favour of Radicalism, as on Tuesday. He 
 was in favour of the Ballot ; and described the Ballot as prefer- 
 able to open voting, because it is " a free and easy, and effective 
 system :" but the first two adjectives sufficiently explained his 
 hopes : — he would have the country " free," but only on condi- 
 tion that it's "easy" as well. Sir Robert represents the free- 
 and-easy interests ; that is the style of thought and talk. He 's 
 the free-and-easiest orator in Parliament : he stands with one 
 hand in his pocket, and he twirls a cane in the other, — some- 
 times varying the gesture by twirling his moustache. He gives 
 solemn advice to the country gentlemen — a sagacity he derives, 
 perhaps, from studying his father's career — to give way on 
 the Ballot now, gracefully, because, gracefully or not, they 
 would be certain to have to do it in a few years. He said the 
 Ballot was the Cape Horn of politics — and that was taken as a 
 mot, and Sir Robert grinned heartily with the grinning House ; 
 and he particularly advised Sir James Graham not to make 
 such a fuss about this, as, having swallowed every other political 
 nostrum, surely he needn't stick at this. That is Sir Robert's 
 fun ; and he fancies that when the House roars at his brus- 
 queries it is laughing with him, and in no degree at him, which 
 is surely a mistake. He was very funny on Lord John — some 
 people thought it was sheer impudence — but the House didn't 
 stop to inquire if it was respectful, and laughed unreservedly ; 
 a noticeable sign that Lord John is going down. 
 
 But Sir Robert only led himself out of the country party 
 into the ballot lobby. Lord John following, but not noticing 
 the erratic baronet, had put his elbows into his hands, trotted 
 out Sidney from that eternal scaffold, mentioned Sir John 
 Elliott (he has taken to that patriot since he married into the 
 Mintos), invoked vigour, candour, and openness in public 
 affairs and public trusts, and suggesting, in reply to Mr. Bright, 
 that the Massachusetts convention had not yet made up its 
 mind about secret voting, very solemnly concluded — " Well, 
 then, let us pause." (Loud cheers from the Whigs.) And then 
 Lord John sat down. That is the great Whig policy. Con- 
 ventions are being held in Massachusetts, while corruption is 
 eating into the heart of England ; and Lord John adjures the 
 House of Commons "to pause." And the House paused ac- 
 cordingly ; and the character of the division would appear to 
 be this — because Massachusetts is not decided, England sus- 
 pends her opinion about the question of open as against secret 
 voting. Mr. Bright is responsible for putting the idea into 
 Lord John's head. 
 
P ARMAMENT AEY RETROSPECT, NO. 20. 175 
 
 No. 20. 
 
 June 25. 
 " Pooh — pooh ! why should I give way ? Want to go home 
 early? Of course he does. So do I ; and I'm twenty years 
 older." Mr. Hume thus expressed himself at about six yester- 
 day evening, in reply to the countless applications made to 
 him to let Mr. Macaulay speak first. Mr. Hume had adjourned 
 the debate (India Bill) from Thursday : and Mr. Hume had got 
 the right to have the House first ; and Mr. Hume is an obstinate 
 man, who cannot perceive the advantage of following Mr. 
 Macaulay in a grand debate. Mr. Canning said that Mr. Hume 
 was an extraordinary ordinary man ; and in no respect is his 
 commonplace more marvellous than in the belief that public 
 speaking is his forte. The House doesn't agree with him ; and 
 as his infelicitous firmness was bruited about he became very 
 unpopular. Great crowds were down about the House awaiting 
 Macaulay, and they Oh — oh'd,and cried, "Macaulay, Macaulay!" 
 when Mr. Hume got up ; but it was of no use — Mr. Hume 
 floundered sedately and contentedly into Tnedias res ; and the 
 House emptied spitefully, and did not return in great numbers, 
 for there was no longer a certainty about the great member for 
 Edinburgh, and at least it was hoped he would be mute tiU 
 dinner was over. But he wouldn't ; he waited patiently on 
 Mr. Hume, and followed, in a not crowded but respectfully eager 
 House, with a speech which was undoubtedly excellent from its 
 point of view, but has disappointed the expectation of every 
 one but Ministers. He delighted Ministers and dissatisfied 
 everybody else. Broken down in health, uncontrollably ner- 
 vous, and unable to sustain the pitch of his voice, we are 
 hardly to look now for those vividly brilliant Macaulay orations, 
 to hear which was a grand intellectual luxury ; and certainly 
 not, when the orator happens to be on the unpopular side, de- 
 fending a bill, for no more precise reason, it is probable, than 
 that he is the editor of it. Still it was a fine defence, abound- 
 ing in suggestions, and rich in the resources of informing illus- 
 tration : but it was not Macaulayish, — it was cold, tame, and 
 rather businesslike, and reminding of the old style, or of the 
 style in which he spoke three weeks ago on Lord Hotham's 
 Exclusion of Judges' Bill, only here and there, as in the hearty 
 scholarly vindication of academical distinctions, and in the re- 
 view-like assault on Lord Ellenborough. Cheered at such pas- 
 sages he was warmly and delightedly ; but, for the most part. 
 
176 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 20. 
 
 his speech, did not tell, and the impression he produced Vas 
 that he had missed the great occasion to stamp his name on 
 Indian legislation out of mere personal considerations for the 
 comfort of bureaucratic Whigs and the curry-powder classes. 
 The great effort was frigidly talked about and cruelly criticised ; 
 and the conclusion to which observation led was that Mr. 
 Macaulay, for the first time in his life, had not made a hit 
 where he had aimed. That event gave a dull tone to the evening ; 
 members went off dissatisfied to smoke ; mild Mr. Blackett, who 
 next went in to win, and did (with the members of the Indian 
 Reform Association) ; jaunty Lord Jocelyn (trying to get back 
 among the Peelites and on the way to an Indian Presidency, — 
 for which he prepares himself by copious blue books — that be- 
 ing his view of a statesman's education) ; objectless Mr. Otway 
 (who was rotundly inconclusive); ardent Mr. Adderley (who 
 thought that he had a good right to speak about India, seeing 
 that the Cape is half-way) ; and maundering Mr. Mangles (who 
 announced that he was breaking for the first time the silence of 
 twelve years, and induced a regret at his precipitancy) ; — all 
 spoke, in due succession of orderly dulness, to a thinner House 
 than would be got on a great railway bill. It was mortifying, 
 but what was to be expected 1 Two of these gentlemen were 
 showing, in elaborate essays, in which they solemnly dogma- 
 tized, that Parliament ought not to legislate, because Parlia- 
 ment was ignorant of the question ; and the two others, the 
 possible Indian President and the actual Director, were arguing 
 that Parliament was not ignorant, and proved their case by 
 declaring that " the honourable gentlemen below the gangway" 
 (meaning the Indian Reform Society's members) were in the 
 crassest unconsciousness of what they had been talking about. 
 The House could not find enjoyment in the dissertations of 
 theorists, or the simulations of "practical" men, who look on 
 the 150,000,000 merely as animals who are to be governed, or as 
 men who are machines for the contribution of revenue ; and by 
 the time Mr. Mangles had compensated for his prolonged and 
 commendable taciturnity by the most terrible reaction remem- 
 bered by Mr. Siiaw Lefevre, it was one in the morning, and the 
 debate had to be adjourned — most of the potent personages 
 having yet to declare themselves. 
 
 Likewise on Thursday, when it was known early that Macaulay 
 would not speak till yesterday, and then the first thing, and 
 when, consequently, all the other pretentious orators made up 
 their minds, like discreet men, not to anticipate a person who 
 was going to speak to posterity, and would therefore have it in 
 his power to hand down those whom he attacked to eternal 
 contempt, there were all the indications of the correctness of 
 the theory advanced here some weeks ago — viz. that there is 
 in England profound public indifference to Indian affairs, and 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 20. 177 
 
 that, but for the opportunity which they might offer for ptarty 
 devices, Ministers, whether with a good or a bad bill, would 
 have carte blanche to deal with the dusky 150,000,000 just as 
 the Yorkshire squire. Sir Charles, who is ruler over them, might 
 happen to like. Last night there was at first a good House, 
 because there were great speakers expected. On Thursday 
 there were not 100 members present at any period of the 
 debate, because second-rate, or at least second-class men, were 
 to be competing for the Speaker's eye. And the Tories were on 
 thorns, for they are at last perceiving that Mr. Disraeli is 
 splitting them up into two camps, and they were not certain — 
 the meeting at Lord Derby's not having been quite successful 
 — whether they ought not to go into the country, and so get 
 out of the dilemma in which they were plaeed between young 
 Stanley and old Herries. Inglis is always nearer Russell than 
 Disraeli now : his orthodoxy has been alarmed for some time by 
 that terrible chapter in the Bentinck biography, which adjured 
 Sir Robert Inglis to be grateful to the Jews because they ef- 
 fected the crucifixion ! and his spiteful speech — the idea of being 
 led by a young fellow of twenty-six — absurd ! — did not make 
 much impression. But Herries did : that is, what was heard, 
 for that gentleman has a faculty for talking confidentially with 
 the clerk at the table, and makes no exciting displays ; and, 
 no doubt, it was a question, after that statesman's snub of the 
 aspiring Stanley, whether the decorous Tories ought to cast 
 ridicule on their party by voting on an Indian Bill in the teeth 
 of the man whom, when they were in power, they made Pre- 
 sident of the Board of Control. 
 
 The speeches on Thursday were worth a better House. 
 Lord Stanley had an audience of about thirty; he spoke 
 athwart the dinner-hour — and his party is the dining-out 
 party — yet Lord Stanley spoke very well. Trained in the art 
 of public speaking, he knows how to make adroit use of the 
 ample materials always available to one in his position. But 
 his good speaking is confined to his matter and to his style. 
 He labours under terrible disadvantages of manner. Some one 
 said lately of him that he was a Demosthenes who kept the 
 pebbles in his mouth, and that is a very good description of a 
 very dreadful voice, to which, however, you get accustomed, 
 so at least as to catch all the words, and it may, therefore, be 
 practicable for him to get a House of Commons position, for 
 when a man has always the same audience, the audience ceases 
 to notice what at first are repulsive peculiarities. He cannot 
 conquer this natural defect — a defect which would have kept 
 most men to their libraries and country walks. But he has 
 Other defects, which do not indicate that Lord Derby is as good 
 a trainer as he should be. Lord Stanley gesticulates with his 
 head. Fancy Costa, having lost his hdton and making use of 
 
 N 
 
178 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 20. 
 
 Ms head, and you get an exact idea of Lord Stanley suiting 
 the one action to every word. It 's ridiculous, but the House 
 gets used to that too ; and tells Lord Stanley when it meets 
 him in the lobby that he is a great orator; even, with the 
 usual tendency of the world, to set father against son, contesting 
 colloquially that he is the Pitt to the Chatham. The Fox on 
 this occasion — on this In^dia Bill — was Mr. Robert Lowe ; and 
 as he spoke, speculative strangers following him, continued the 
 inquiry how far natural disadvantages can be overcome by 
 orators. These were two successful public speakers, yet suc- 
 cessful despite of remarkable physical drawbacks. Lord Stan- 
 ley has a split palate, and Mr. Robert Lowe is all but blind ; 
 yet there these'two men were — and very few noticing the peculia- 
 rity — the principal debaters on one of the greatest questions that 
 could occupy — and intimidate away — a British Senate. Mr. 
 Lowe was actually debating, answering point by point, an anta- 
 gonist, whom he could see just as little as he could see the 
 150,000,000 — quoting and making reference to papers, which 
 he could only read with the assistance of a microscope, which 
 appears brought down to him with his red box. It was an odd 
 duel — a blind speaker replying to a speaker with a slit palate : 
 but it was a very interesting one. Mr. Lowe crowded into one 
 hour every argument expanded by Sir Charles Wood into five ', 
 and it is to Sir Charles's credit that he appreciated the speech, 
 and wasn't a bit jealous — he chuckled, spluttered and sug- 
 gested, and pulled by the coat-tails, gleefully — and, with his 
 celebrated tact, always at the wrong time. So did the other 
 Ministers enjoy the speech, which was a masterpiece of concise 
 and compact reply ; and so did the forty or fifty who kept the 
 three or four Ministers in countenance — the three or four 
 Ministers trying not to look ashamed of the British Senate in 
 the presence of the Hindoo magnates who were sitting in the 
 gallery to see how the 150,000,000 fared. Mr. Phinn, who suc- 
 ceeded to Mr. Lowe, made a good speech too : — a practised 
 barrister on the right side generally does. Mr. Phinn is always 
 making good speeches now ; and is always getting up to catch 
 the Speaker's eye; and is being set down as a rising man. 
 The third important speaker on Thursday, was Mr. H. Baillie, 
 Tory ex-Secretary to the Board of Control. Who'll follow 
 Baillie ? was a general inquiry while he was talking — the usual 
 sign that he was not making way; and the conclusion was, 
 that the debate would be adjourned — for who would face a 
 House of thirty or forty listless men with a great speech, small 
 speeches on so "vast" a subject being of course out of the 
 question ? But no ; one was astonished to see the Tory ex- 
 President of the Board of Control following the Tory ex- 
 Secretary of the Board of Control. What bad taste, said every 
 one; but it wasn't; it was quite correct: the Tory ex-Presi- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 20. 179 
 
 dent of the Board of Control followed because he was going to 
 reply to his ex-Secretary. And he did, and was loudly and 
 chucklingly cheered by Sir Charles Wood, and suavely smiled 
 at by Lord John. After that, Mr. Disraeli must have felt his 
 arrows blunted for impromptu taunts upon Ministerial confu- 
 sion. An age of coalitions is clearly beginning to mean an age 
 when everybody is to vote against everybody. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 21. 
 
 No. 21. 
 
 July 2. 
 If Englishmen would study tlieir country in its aspects this 
 week, they might be in danger of reaching the conclusion, that 
 for the present it is not a country to be immensely proud of. 
 
 Prominently, the conversations on Thursday, in Lords and 
 Commons, as to when debates on the Russo-Turkish question 
 are to take place, should attract the attention of an enlight- 
 ened public. Next, some observation is due to the proceedings 
 in the Commons on Tuesday, when, furnishing new proofs that 
 it is a club, and not a national senate, party tactics succeeded 
 among indifferent members in shirking a great question — was 
 it true (as Mr. Drummond's amendment alleged), that all 
 Boards of Admiralty administrate their department in a cor- 
 rupt spirit? Then the list of minor questions, occupying the 
 week, is remarkable. On Wednesday, a bill was brought in to 
 diminish the scandal of Simony in the National Church. On 
 Tuesday, Mr. Collier obtained a great parliamentary success, 
 which no one ever anticipated, by a comprehensive speech on 
 the villanies of our Ecclesiastical Courts. Another three 
 hours, on the same day, were devoted to a consideration of 
 the expediency of legislative interference to check the enor- 
 mous mortality consequent upon improper systems of labour 
 in our factories and mills. The hideous extent of juvenile 
 delinquency has, conspicuously, been another topic. Altogether, 
 though we have got rid of the remainder of the petition com- 
 mittees, there is nothing in the "business" of the parliamen- 
 tary week to suggest national pride. 
 
 A great nation is to be kept in suspense as to the chances of 
 a great war, because Lord John Russell has gone sick to bed! 
 Europe may tremble : but Lord John must cure a diarrhoea. 
 Trade may stop : but Lord John must have his chalk mixtures. 
 Well, if the great and self-governing, enlightened nation is 
 content, why not? Certainly, when Peel disappeared, the 
 country kept itself up. Certainly, when Wellington died, the 
 funds did not greatly descend. And we have still in the 
 House of Commons Lord Palmerston, who does know one or 
 two things about foreign affairs. But we can't do without 
 Lord John ; no, we cannot get through a foreign policy debate 
 without Lord John. You would not suppose that from the 
 talk in society about him ; from the way the House pours out 
 when he rises ; from the sneering negatives about him in the 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 21. 181 
 
 journals. But we know his value ; and crave for Cincinnatus 
 from Richmond : at least the postponement of Mr. Layard's 
 motion, which turns up with as much difficulty as a Nineveh 
 monumeut — from Friday till Monday, and over Monday, per- 
 haps, again — was taken as a matter of course ; the tone almost 
 indicating that if the Queen had requested a prorogation 
 because Lord John wanted rest, the Commons would have 
 ordered cabs and gone to the railways meekly. In the Lords, 
 on Thursday, the postponement of Lord Clanricarde's motion 
 was put upon different grounds, but upon grounds just as 
 slightly complimentary to a self-governing people. Because 
 a mystery balances an impertinence : the "public service," the 
 ready friends of fidgety and weak Lord Clarendon, suggested 
 to the feignedly coy Lord Clauricarde, might be injured by a 
 discussion : but why ? The people are regarded by the Peers 
 just as Rabelais' poulettes were regarded by the cook ; they 
 may object to being either boiled or roasted, when the cook 
 puts to them which process they will prefer, and the cook's 
 comment on the answer is, that it is not to the point : the 
 English nation is to be permitted by the Peers to discuss the 
 measures of the Government after the Government has acted 
 — may recommend peace when we are in the midst of war, or 
 may demand war after disgraceful conditions of peace have 
 been conceded by the Government. The English nation must 
 be convinced that it is a fine thing to have representative 
 institutions, and to be self-governing ; and the self-government 
 is illustrated in the Cabinet crisis hanging over our heads this 
 ten days, some saying that Lord Aberdeen had resigned, and 
 some saying that he had not, and neither party being believed, 
 and the people having no say whatever in the business ; and if 
 we were to have our rulers changed from an austere intriguer 
 to an intriguer who is not austere — which is the ambition of 
 young Toryism — nobody being entitled to declare a preference, 
 except, of course, the very responsible sovereign who is well 
 known to be determined towards an amicable alliance with 
 Louis Napoleon for the purpose of crushing Russia, and who, 
 therefore, is not afraid of a war, and consequently, not dis- 
 posed to sacrifice national interests to the interests of the 
 Coburgs and the Orleanists. Self-government may also be 
 illustrated in a consideration of the course taken on the India 
 Bill. Everybody who is of any weight disapproves of this 
 bill ; but the House of Commons consists of the delegates of 
 the governing classes, and there is not a family of the govern- 
 ing classes which has not some distinct direct or indirect 
 interest in sustaining the misgovernment of India; and the 
 result is, that a bill to continue indefinitely the villanies of 
 British governing classes in India is to be passed, with a few 
 modifications, by an overwhelming majority. 
 
182 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 21. 
 
 But to come to proper, however unpatriotic, conclusions as to 
 that crack West-End club, the House of Commons, we must 
 look minutely to its workings on Tuesday night, in relation to 
 Mr. Keating's proposal of a vote of censure on the Earl of 
 Derby's Board of Admiralty. Let us look back and recollect 
 the origin of the discussion. When Lord Derby, last summer, 
 made his reluctant appeal to the country, all that Tory cor- 
 ruption could do was done to obtain a favourable new Parlia- 
 ment. Mr. Stafford, the Secretary to the Admiralty, and to 
 whom the First Lord handed all that sort of management, 
 made desperate efforts to use his official influence for his party's 
 political purpose ; and his sins having been partly acknow- 
 ledged, after equivocations, and partly discovered, a committee 
 was this year appointed by the new House of Commons to in- 
 quire into his proceedings, and this committee reported to the 
 House that all the allegations were true ; that Mr. Stafford had 
 corruptly and dishonourably erased an order which regulated 
 promotions in the dockyards ; had corruptly and dishonourably 
 canvassed in the dockyards for his political friends ; had cor- 
 ruptly and dishonourably given a dinner to his political friends, 
 and charged that dinner to the expenses of his official depart- 
 ment. This report was severe ; but in the public estimate a 
 more direct censure would have been justified by the destruc- 
 tive evidence elicited by the committee. The report was read 
 at the bar of the House — and then ? In the simple popular 
 apprehension impeachment was a natural thing to follow ; at 
 least the voluntary retirement of Mr. Stafford into private life 
 was expected. The Duke of Northumberland, Mr. Stafford's 
 First Lord, had long been guessed corrupt in a negative way ; 
 he had not been criminal ; he had only been — unwise ; but so 
 unwise that some public apology, by himself or by his friends, 
 was to be anticipated. Nothing of the kind. The evening of 
 the report, Mr. Stafford sauntered about jauntily, Mr. Disraeli 
 did not look abashed, the Government grinned, the Radical 
 patriots frowned, the House was indifferent ; the report was to 
 be a dead letter. A young member, not familiar with the morale 
 of the club, comes forward, and proffers himself as public pro- 
 secutor. But he could only give notice of motion : after 
 Easter, notices of motion are confined to Tuesdays, and for 
 place on Tuesday every notice has to ballot with competitors ; 
 so that Mr. Keating had to wait till Tuesday last, and was 
 then third or fourth on the list. It was a charge that a great 
 department had betrayed its trust — that the Navy had been 
 sold to the Carlton Club ; and club, if not general, excitement 
 and interest would have been in due course. The nation did 
 not know the matter was coming on ; the club was excited 
 simply as to the best means of getting rid of the business 
 without further scandal. Driven to a vote, the majority in the 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 21. 183 
 
 House would probably carry the motion ; or, worse, carry Mr. 
 Drummond's characteristic amendment;* but everyone in the 
 House, Sir Benjamin Hall and Mr. Keating excepted, wanted 
 to avoid a vote. The club doesn't like that sort of question : 
 and it is an understanding between all parties, and tacitly 
 there was an understanding between Government and the Tory 
 Opposition on Tuesday, that the Keating class of innocents is 
 not to be encouraged — the club's dirty linen, of that descrip- 
 tion, being best washed and dried in the smoking room. But 
 Mr. Keating displayed moral courage in giving the notice ; 
 and he displayed the same quality in insisting on bringing it 
 on. He was pumped in the lobby, wheedled in the House, 
 bullied everywhere ; but on he would bring his motion. IMatters 
 then looked serious for Mr. Stafford, on Tuesday ; but he is so 
 rich, so clever, and such a doosed good fellow, the club couldn't 
 allow him to be harmed ; and Mr. Disraeli hit upon a method 
 of evasion, which was perhaps a desperate resource, and not 
 quite worthy of a responsible statesman — he determined to 
 trick Mr. Keating out of the vote. He collected and talked 
 confidentially with his solemnest tones ; Lord John Manners 
 undertook to speak an hour or two on the Factory motion, 
 which preceded Mr. Keating's ; and Mr. Edward Ball, a lym- 
 phatic Lablache, groaned deep acquiescence, and engaged to 
 save the Conservative party by employing the House, and keep- 
 ing off Keating. ^' Keep Keating off till eleven," was the word 
 passed, ^'and then he can't go on, it will be too late." Ball 
 groaned, and Manners lisped, pursuant to promise; and by 
 their displays justified Mr. Disraeli's selection of them, as the 
 most tedious and insipid of orators ; but at last came eleven 
 o'clock, and worse, the House, which seemed to have faith in 
 Keating's resolution, was filling — Covent Garden and Pall Mall 
 electric telegraph having notified to mourning senators that 
 Ball was down, that Manners had given way. What was to be 
 done] Mr. Disraeli, in a by-the-by way, suggested that it was 
 late, somewhat too late, for that full discussion which he and 
 his friends desired ; perhaps Mr. Keating would consent to a 
 postponement ? " Yes," said Mr. Keating, " if the Government 
 will give me a day." " Exactly," said Mr. Disraeli. " Pray, 
 Lord John" (knowing Lord John wouldn't), " give Mr. Keating 
 a day." "Really," mumbled Lord John, "India — Budget — 
 Education — ^must prorogue before Christmas : can't, indeed." 
 What more important than the House's censure of corrupt 
 administrators 1 But Lord John takes the club view, and re- 
 garded Mr. Keating as a bore, and had already acquitted Mr. 
 Stafford's personal honour. In that case, then, Mr. Keating 
 would go on ; and amid the miserably malignant cries of " Oh, 
 
 * That all Boards were alike corrupt. 
 
184 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 21. 
 
 oh," and the baffled scowls of a corrupt faction, on Mr. Keat- 
 ing went, with creditable equanimity, in well-bred repose of 
 manner, and with an honest determination to say the truths he 
 had made up his mind to tell. He told them, in great detail, 
 but the detail was necessary to the force of the charge ; and 
 despite the continuous roars at him from the one side, and the 
 still more vexatious restive carelessness of the other, Mr. Keat- 
 ing did not finish till he had satisfied himself that he had done 
 his duty. This was after midnight. Sir John Pakington was 
 put up by Mr. Disraeli as a good available bore. With un- 
 affected truth Sir John Pakington declared that he could not 
 debate — that he was incapable — that his party was incapable 
 of an off'-hand reply to a speech : this being a plea for delay. 
 The party cheered. The Government smiled. Mr. Disraeli was 
 vexed. And then Sir John went into a lengthy, ejaculatory gos- 
 sip about the late Government in general, and the Duke of ilor- 
 thumberland iu particular : not a glimmer of a reply to Mr. 
 Keating — not a trace of a conception of the gravity of the ac- 
 cusation ; and this took till after the first small hour. Then comes 
 Mr. H. Drummond with a well-knov/n Parliamentary red-herring 
 — an amendment to the effect that the pot was disentitled by 
 his own colour to sneer at the blackness of the kettle — that all 
 Boards of Admiralty were alike corrupt. A still graver accu- 
 sation ; but loud cheers ; the cheers of people who have escaped 
 a dilemma from the Tories — loud laughter from the Ministe- 
 rialists. Odd ; but, as it was said, H. Drummond " does hit 
 home so." On the whole, the club was in raptures with Henry 
 Drummond ; he had given Mr. Disraeli a splendid card to play. 
 But Mr. Disraeli, who on this occasion evinced remarkable ca- 
 pacity for party leadership, was sagacious enough to see that it 
 was a card which would keep ; and he accordingly passed the 
 word to play the rest of the pack first. Hence the appearance 
 of nobody after nobody out of the Tory ranks, with motions 
 for adjournment of the House, of the debate, of everything, 
 anything ; the white vests and white neckcloths, tipsy, as is 
 the rule of the young patricians of the club after eleven, were 
 quite reckless, so they could get Stafford off. And they did. 
 At two, Lord John had gone home, and the lead of the House 
 began to be rational ; and easy Lord Palmerston gave way ; 
 and the House was wearied of divisions, and it was, then, very 
 fine to hear Mr. Disraeli, as he threw back his coat flaps and 
 put himself into the attitude of a conqueror, agree to the ad- 
 journment, intimating that he would regard the division (for 
 and against going home) as a division for and against the 
 Derby Board of Admiralty. The effrontery was sublime, the 
 more that it succeeded, and did effectually get rid of the 
 question — Mr. Keating not having that weight in the land 
 which would render his accusatory oration of consequence to 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 21. 185 
 
 the Tories. It was a hard-fought and an exciting sight ; and 
 the white vests and white neckcloths — (why will young politi- 
 cians, knowing their faces will be crimson at midnight, wear 
 such garments?) — went home in the cool morning light, well 
 content with themselves and the club, and with a profound 
 heartily-expressed aversion for " snobs," who, like Sir Benjamin 
 Hall and Mr. Keating, will not permit a "fellow" to do what 
 he can for his party. And of what avail is it, after such a set 
 of scenes, such a tactique, such an exhibition of lax political 
 morality, to assure the club that, though it is careless and cor- 
 rupt, the country condemns? The Duke of Northumberland 
 ill return his members in the north, and Mr. Stafford will 
 ive his dinners in the west, just as usual ; and what cares 
 either for the abstract head-shaking of a great nation which 
 believes it is self-governed, and is proud of its representa- 
 tive institutions? 
 
186 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 22. 
 
 No. 22. 
 
 July 9. 
 When, at two this morning. Lord John Russell, his elbows 
 in his hands, his voice at its tiniest, that is, highest key, and 
 all his phrases being solemnly broadened for effect (thus 
 for instance — '^ they aagsaample awf Anglaand ") — was elo- 
 quently assuring the senate and the world (not calculating 
 that of late the reporters don't write) — was showing that 
 Great Britain was deeply interested in India, and had conferred 
 (as compared with the government of Alexander) the greatest 
 blessings on the " anhaabitaants of Aandia," — when Lord John, 
 amid the assiduous cheers of Mr. Robert Lowe and Sir Charles 
 Wood, was talking to this effect, one contradictory circum- 
 stance was very noticeable — a third of the House was asleep, 
 and the rest was yawning. The British Senate was bored with 
 India, and w^anted to go to bed. The British Senate was per- 
 fectly aware that the British Government of India has been 
 the British plunder of India; and that the intent and very 
 probable consequence of the vote it was about to give would 
 be to hand over the people of India to another decade of vil- 
 lanous oppression. But the British Senate was bored with the 
 subject, wanted to go to bed, and therefore could with diffi- 
 culty maintain a decent suppression of weariness while Lord 
 John was sounding the praises of the British Senate, and rhe- 
 torically arguing against a contingent two years' agitation, 
 which might turn up Hindoo Hampdens and Mohammedan 
 Sidneys ; and the British Senate, conscious of the dishonesty 
 of its intended vote, could not, nevertheless, be bothered with 
 a protracted session, and a possible new crisis, so handed over 
 the 150,000,000 to another generation of satraps who are only 
 clerks, and warriors who are only engineers. Did this, too, 
 without a twinge, remarking only, as it lighted its cigar as it 
 went out after the division to go home, — " By Jove, it 's grand 
 to have India done with at last." That is the observable 
 tone of these memorable debates, and of this great historic 
 occasion throughout. Mr. Bright and Mr. Disraeli have in 
 turn had the hardihood to declare that the House of Commons 
 has proved itself, at this point in its annals, unworthy of the 
 mighty trust which it has inherited from the great Englishmen 
 who built up the British Empire ; and tacitly, that dishonour- 
 able desertion of sacred functions is admitted, and should be 
 made the most of by commentators who, like the writer of 
 
PAKLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 22. 187 
 
 this, seek to convert the House of Commons, by radical 
 reform, from an aristocratic club into a national convention. 
 It has, in fact, been used as an argument against delay by Sir 
 Charles AVood (who did not know that Lord John would 
 threaten Parliament with an agitation), that a House is not to 
 be got together on India, and that, while we have so careless a 
 public, a postponement of legislation for two years would 
 bring us practically no nearer either knowledge or earnestness. 
 The debate has been a protracted one, not because of the ex- 
 citement of the subject, but because there is an Indian 
 Reform Society, whose committee is oratorical, and because 
 there are Secretaries and ex-Secretaries of Boards of Control 
 who have regarded it as their duty to speak on an average of 
 two hours each to audiences of tens and twenties and to 
 stenographers reposing on the belief that Great Britain would 
 not buy papers for the sake of essays on Hindostan. On any 
 night of the debate, the House could (from five to ten o'clock) 
 have been counted out ; and it is only a miracle that one of the 
 Scullys, considering their country neglected, did not make 
 that numerical observation, which the Speaker always regards 
 as the most pointed of the week. Great Britons, who have a 
 belief in the blessings of Great Britain to dark-haired races in 
 different parts of the world, may not be eager to recognise the 
 fact of the day — that, as Mr. l)israeli said, the good govern- 
 ment of India has been sacrificed to the temporary convenience 
 of a Cabinet in a hurry : but there the fact remains — for use 
 by the classes who consider that England has never gone out 
 to conquer but for revenue, and has never kept a conquest but 
 for patronage. 
 
 As members of the House of Commons went home on Friday 
 morning, after the most perplexing division of a perplexed 
 session, the talk was not of the people of India, but of the 
 parties of England ; and the results in this direction will mo- 
 nopolise metropolitan attention too. The division is the con- 
 clusive chaos of political confusion ; and we may now expect 
 the work of re-creation to commence. Mr. Disraeli has com- 
 pleted his most meritorious labour — he has destroyed the coun- 
 try party. When he so graphically sketched Thuggee on Friday 
 morning, why did he not see that he was but reminding the 
 House of the great Tory Thug ? There now, prostrate, lies 
 Perbyism — Lord Stanley chief mourner, Stafford and Mackenzie 
 mutes. When Lord Derby was speaking his dying speech as 
 Premier, he sketched the state of parties, and he announced his 
 own following as 300 gentlemen, vowed to his banner (the 
 tablecloth on which Mr. Stafford gave the private dinner the 
 public paid for). Marmion, gashed and bleeding, and solitary 
 in the Lords, cried "On" to Stanley in the Commons; and 
 Stanley collects his knights in St. James's Square dining-room, 
 
188 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 22. 
 
 where the enlightened British people is so often served up ; and 
 the knights, out of habit, obey the young trumpet, answer the 
 summons, and then leisurely ride into the camp of the Scotch 
 foe who heads the Coalition. Lord Derby leads the Tories one 
 way, and Mr. Herries beckons the Tories another way ; and the 
 Tories follow Mr. Herries, as the wiser and more reliable leader. 
 "The idea of a young fellow of twenty-five leading us," said 
 the Tory interest, credulous of Herries ; and so Lord Stanley 
 was snubbed, and Mr. Disraeli flouted. But it is to be remarked 
 that Mr. Disraeli can feel no surprise at the catastrophe, and per- 
 haps glories in it. He has sedulously separated himself from 
 his old party, since Christmas ; and in his Thursday's speech he 
 plainly spurned the ancient-ways Tories, sneering at Sir Robert 
 Inglis, at whom there was " a laugh," and actually repudiating 
 the presumed right of Herries to speak of the past intentions 
 of the Derby Government as to India. Mr. Disraeli is in search 
 of a new party, and on Thursday he threw ofi' all disguise. On 
 the church rates and on the Jews he led the quasi-Tory party 
 against Lord Derby. On this occasion, he leads the Tory rump, 
 with Lord Derby approving, and Lord Stanley as tentative thin 
 end of the wedge. The Carlton Club, though it is doubtful, 
 may understand all this ; but the outsiders have only to look on 
 with bewildered astonishment, and to hope that Mr. Disraeli 
 sees his way ; meanwhile, exulting in the disappearance of a 
 party which only succeeded in the disreputable, and only for a 
 time in that, and which was not recommended, as an intellectual 
 confederation, by the lead of one of the most incapable nobles 
 who ever got pre-eminence in the most stupid of Upper Houses. 
 The demonstrations of the division are, however, not confined 
 to the Tories. There is confusion in all other parties. Mr. 
 Bright ought to be convinced, now, that Radicalism is a silly 
 and helpless theory, unless it be organised into compactness : 
 and the "Irish party" must see that against the present Go- 
 vernment the tactics of intimidating a Cabinet out of Tenant 
 Right are not absolutely certain of success. But the triumph 
 of the Government is not so clear as the disaster to Lord Derby ; 
 votes were given in many cases on some understanding that 
 everything was to be made right in the Committee. The cries 
 of " divide, divide," when Sir Charles was " summing up" (fancy 
 that !) on Thursday, and the yawns when Lord John was talk- 
 ing his commonplace on Friday morning, were no signs of a 
 strong Government, which at least gets respect to its face. The 
 jeering laughter which was brought out by Mr. Disraeli's iro- 
 nical references to the Reform Bill, on which the Cabinet is 
 supposed to be divided in advance, was no intimation that Lord 
 John and Lord Aberdeen are greatly reverenced for restraining 
 their natural instincts — to fly apart. A whipper-in knows best 
 when Government is strong ; and Mr. Hayter will tell you of 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 22. 189 
 
 what he went through during these Indian debates : — ^he went 
 on his knees to beseech men not to speak, and other men for 
 God's sake to come and keep a House ; and he was treated 
 abominably. He has given away this week a fabulous number 
 of gaugerships and clerkships, and yet he could not get the 
 commonest attention, — and he begins to notice that buttons are 
 just now very badly sown on Coalition coats, which may be 
 because of the turning. 
 
 The India debate of June will be remembered for two of the 
 greatest speeches delivered of late years in the House of Com- 
 mons, — Mr. Bright's and Mr. Disraeli's, both this week. Great 
 in their complete contrast to one another, Mr. Bright and Mr. 
 Disraeli were the only orators who, in these discussions, filled 
 the House, or in the least excited it, — a proof that it is an as- 
 sembly which, certain general rules being observed, admits of 
 success to vast variety of style. Mr. Bright succeeds because 
 he is so intensely English, earnest, and natural ; Mr. Disraeli 
 is a House of Commons hero, because he is so magnificent an 
 actor, so superbly historical and impartial, and so elegantly 
 artificial. Mr. Bright is the most English-looking man I ever 
 saw, and Mr. Disraeli the least English-looking man I ever 
 saw ; and the characters jcorrespond to the looks : they view 
 public life from completely different points, and they deal with 
 every subject in a totally different manner. Their iiiorale is as 
 different as their style is ; and it is, consequently, of some in- 
 terest to study (it is recommended to rising men) how the same 
 position could have been got by each in the House of Com- 
 mons, where, after Mr. Gladstone, they are now the two great- 
 est personages, with the two greatest futures, of any men of 
 their time. Mr. Bright and Mr. Disraeli went into the same 
 lobby on India, because the one looked at India like an honest 
 Englishman, anxious that England should do her duty there ; 
 and the other, like an intelligent foreign gentleman, learned 
 in the Asian mystery, fully cognisant of British peculiarities 
 in India, and sjnnpathising more with the 150.000,000 Hindoos 
 than with the 650 members of the House of Commons who do 
 not like trouble, or even than with the English nation, which 
 knows nothing of, and (he supposes) cares as little for, the 
 150,000,000. On foreign politics, that foreign tone of Mr. 
 Disraeli is, with all his art, perceptible ; Mr. Roebuck detected 
 and denounced it when, in the debate on Lord Palmerston's 
 Don Pacifico quarrel, Mr. Disraeli hinted with insufficient 
 melancholy that a league of Cambray was getting up against 
 the Venetian constitution ; and it was very perceptible on 
 Friday evening that he was not an ardent admirer of Great 
 Britons in their relations with Hindoos. And while exciting 
 this suspicion in the patriots who dine with East India direc- 
 tors or rare stock, or have the routine British faith that Great 
 
190 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 22. 
 
 Britain is a blessing to those she conquers, he did not win that 
 enthusiasm from Mr. Bright's party which was raised by the 
 passionate and magnificently manly declamation of Mr. Bright. 
 Perhaps Mr. Disraeli cared as much for English as Hindoos ; 
 but his tone was the tone of a man talking and acting history 
 from the mere artistic point of view, coldly and critically desti- 
 tute of the human passions which give an interest in humanity. 
 It is one advantage of a Jew gentleman to be a gentleman 
 without a country (as Sidonia is made to suggest), and it gives 
 a strange power to Mr. Disraeli as a speaker in the House of 
 Commons. But the secret of the power seems to be beginning 
 to be understood, and it a question if, when the truth is de- 
 tected, the man who can be thus impartial and critical can 
 expect again to head an English " party," which, whatever its 
 cry, exists on the condition of being blindly patriotic. On the 
 other hand, earnestly honest Englishmen like Mr. Bright 
 would seem to be at the same disadvantage; for give Mr. 
 Bright his way, which is to let the natives have theirs, and 
 where would the Indian Empire be ? He talked in his vehe- 
 ment way, on Monday, of "eternal justice;" but British 
 statesmen can scarcely afford the luxury — it isn't " practical." 
 So that, of the two, Mr. Disraeli's point of view may, in the 
 end, be the most business-like. But a better statesman than 
 either is Sir James Graham, who on Monday joined in the de- 
 bate, and talked affable technicalities, which patriot members, 
 though they wouldn't stay to hear, took care to read, and 
 which influenced the votes Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Bright lost. 
 Cursed with no comprehensive mind, little history, and a slug- 
 gish political conscience, Sir James sees only what it is " to the 
 purpose" and "practical" to see; and as far as he could see 
 about the 150,000,000, why his right honourable friend, the 
 President of the Board of Control, seemed quite good enough 
 for them. (Hear, hear, from Sir Charles Wood.) Therefore the 
 House divided for Sir James Graham's plan, which was not, as 
 Mr. Disraeli proposed, to substitute elastic bands for the red 
 tape performing Thuggee on India, and not, as Mr. Bright pro- 
 posed, to hand the 150,000,000 a scissors ; but to change the 
 knot. Sir James is celebrated for that plan ; and is ever ready 
 to be Thug on any subject in any department. By the playful 
 smile on his copious countenance you can see his desire that 
 the party should be at least comfortable. 
 
 It may be taken for granted that the great debates of the 
 session are over with that on India. 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 23. 191 
 
 No. -23. 
 
 July 16. 
 The conversation, on Thursday night, between Lord John 
 Russell, Mr. William Williams, and Mr. Milner Gibson, was 
 very indicative that we are in July : the inquiry being — when 
 will the innocents be massacred ? Herod Lord John not being 
 quite able to say: while assistant "Leader" Lord Palmerston is 
 found, at a later hour the same evening, recommending suicide, 
 as likely to promote business, to the independent members who 
 have "notices" for Wednesdays. When it was ascertained 
 that the India Bill was safe — the safety of the Budget having 
 been already assured — the session inevitably was marked out 
 for the dulness which attends the execution of formalities — the 
 completion of a routine in which no more room is left for party 
 risks: and "at this period," as almanac writers would say, 
 members of narrow chests and small heads begin to discover 
 that morning sittings are preferable to evening sittings, that 
 the enlightened Senate is too much given to talking, and that, 
 generally, the House of Commons does not comprehend the 
 best methods of doing business — remarks never made, not 
 even by Mr. Ewart, who, though he never got a hearing, could 
 always find satisfaction in conscientious listening, when the 
 House came fresh to the full swing of the " noble competition" 
 of parties. No doubt, when the orators go out, and the busi- 
 ness members come in, it is very heavy work : when Brother ton 
 is in the ascendant, we know the nation is getting on ; but we 
 are not amused: and in the " club" view of the House of Com- 
 mons, the William Brown class are bores ; though to no class is 
 the country — which, however, has very little to say in the matter 
 — more extensively indebted. How is it to be expected that the 
 young patrician, disgusted both with the season and the ses- 
 sion, or the dilettante Mr. Ewart class, perpetually in search of 
 first principles, and taking the pedantic view of human pro- 
 gress, should find an interest in a morning sitting 1 A morning 
 sitting is like a committee meeting on the stage of a theatre in 
 the daytime : the groups get light through the gallery sky- 
 lights ; there is a musty smell of properties, and a clammy 
 sensation of dauby side-scenes ; and everybody looks dismal, 
 and hideously out of place. The House in the daytime is like 
 a theatre in the daytime : you can't get over the conviction, 
 that it is only rehearsal before you ; and you miss the lights 
 and the spangles ; and cannot get up the delusion which after 
 
192 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 23. 
 
 ten at night impresses yon with the belief, that the greatest 
 national Senate in the world is acting and speaking history. 
 The young patricians, consequently, stay away ; the debaters 
 shut themselves up over their blue-books, correspondence, and 
 impromptiis ; the dilettante M.P.'s devote themselves to calculat- 
 ing what they will save in their yearly incomes by the new 
 cab regulations ; and Great Britain is handed over to James 
 Wilson, Joseph Brotherton, and William Brown. And when 
 the morning sittings set in, the business members get an 
 impetus which carries them predominant over the evening 
 sittings too ; the character of the session changes ; work is got 
 through, and debating is suppressed. And then, when people 
 are merely bored, they fancy they are over-worked ; and 
 intolerable twaddle is talked, and even written, on that point. 
 There is no reason whatever why Parliament should not sit the 
 whole year round ; in this age of railways and electric tele- 
 graphs all recesses are lunacies, but the long recess of six 
 months is only to be regarded as a wide national mischief. 
 Parliament tries to do in four months the work of a year, and 
 it does its work badly in consequence ; and clearly would enjoy 
 better health, make better speeches, and take more cheerful 
 views, if it sat all the year round, and divided the day, like 
 other men of business, in a rational and easy manner. But 
 the talk of over-work is absurd ; absurd in a leading journal 
 which is got out by men who work every day as hard as Mr. 
 Gladstone works in the session, and who do that work the 
 whole year round. It is absurd — because the talk is general- 
 ised, as if the House, in the aggregate, suffered equally ; as if 
 all members worked alike ; and as if the same members were 
 always "the House." The work that is got through without 
 fatal effects, in a session, could be got through in a year. 
 Undoubtedly a Minister, when his department is involved, 
 must keep his brain and body at full stretch to keep pace 
 with the necessities of Government. But, excepting Mr. 
 Gladstone and Mr. Wilson, Sir Charles Wood and Mr. Lowe, 
 Lord Clarendon and Sir James Graham, which of the 
 Ministers can be said to be laborious or laboured 1 Lord 
 Aberdeen has not got the nature which would feel the killing 
 excitement of work if he had it ; Lord John's great grievance 
 is that he is idle ; Lord Palmerston is too clever a husbander 
 ever to have the sensation of being tired. And ask those who 
 are worked if they do not enjoy it ? Great labour at great 
 posts is great happiness ; and the sensation of mental satisfac- 
 tion (men get used to the fidgetiness of responsibility) is in 
 itself a preservative of health ; while, as a rule also, hard work 
 is the cause of good health, inasmuch as hard work involves 
 the most careful regularity of regimen and habit. Well, is the 
 Opposition over-worked 1 Mr. Disraeli now leads as easj^nd 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT KO. 23. 193 
 
 graceful a life as any man in London ; if Sir John Pakington 
 were not kept scribbling and talking, he would be miserable ; Mr. 
 Walpole is breaking down because he has nothing to do ; if 
 Mr. Bright were not chained at the oar, at the club he is begin- 
 ning to like, he would be throwing off his superabundant energy 
 just as forcibly somewhere else. Take the mass of members — 
 those who have trades, and professions, and callings, beyond 
 the House, and who make money and keep the Senate going at 
 the same time ; which of them could not, if he would, lessen 
 his labours ? who would accept the Chiltern Hundreds, or isn't 
 a happier man because of the House ? But the late sittings ! 
 Sitting up till two and three never did anybody any harm yet, 
 if there was average sleep enough afterwards ; young ladies 
 do it all through the season ; fast young gentlemen all the 
 year ; and as there are only four night sittings in the week, no 
 member ever suffers to an extent to justify complaint from 
 that cause. 
 
 Parliament is all the more dull at present that the excite- 
 ment about the war has gone off. Parliament might consent 
 to Lord Clarendon's interment — in a sack in the Bosphorus — of 
 "national honour ;" but why should Parliament be sentenced 
 to play the mutes on the occasion ? If not a war, why not let 
 Parliament have a talk about war? That was Mr. Disraeli's 
 entreaty to Lord John on Thursday ; but no — Lord John didn't 
 think a key necessary where there was no "dead lock ;" he and 
 Lord Clarendon and Lord Aberdeen could arrange easily for the 
 self-governed country which is in profound ignorance of what 
 is going on — much obliged to Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Layard all 
 the same. Lord John had oddly demonstrated his fitness to 
 settle the imbroglio. On the Thursday he had to apologise for 
 a gross blunder which he had made on the preceding Monday. 
 According to Lord Clarendon on Tuesday (and en 2^ctssantj it 
 may be said that nothing more ungraceful, undignified, or 
 more unintellectual, than Lord Clarendon's matter and manner 
 in answering questions can be conceived). Lord John, on Mon- 
 day, had given an opinion about the last Kesselrode note with- 
 out having read the note! Mr. Disraeli, on Monday, put a 
 certain interpretation on that note. Lord John repudiated the 
 interpretation ; Lord Clarendon corrected him, and with cut- 
 ting courtesy Mr. Disraeli, on Thursday, makes Lord John 
 apologise ! The apology was that he had only seen the note in 
 a newspaper, and very hurriedly ; which amounts to this, that 
 Lord John is not quick in conception, for which he begs the 
 House he leads to be good enough to excuse him ! which the 
 House did ; Lord John with characteristic self-complacency, 
 not perceiving the conspicuous absurdity of his position and 
 his confession. The House did excuse him, because the position 
 of the House is still more ludicrous — seldom knowing anything 
 
194 PAELIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 23. 
 
 of foreign affairs, and of this particular foreign affair being 
 assiduously kept in the dark : the excuse in the present ease 
 being very magnificent — that if it talked much about the 
 matter, it might provoke a war ; to which the enlightened 
 House, like the enlightened country, is holily averse. Lord 
 John's blunder led to this — that for twenty-four hours the 
 nation was misled on a most vital point ; and surely that is a 
 circumstance which, by-and-bye, when the House begins to 
 perceive the point, will justify a little complaint 1 Lord Pal- 
 merston was sitting by Lord John when Lord John blundered ; 
 why did not Lord Palmerston, who is quicker, correct Lord 
 John 1 It is quite the rule for one Minister to make fun of the 
 other, behind the other's back ; no doubt Mr. Disraeli and Lord 
 Palmerston, when they met in the dining-room, had a con- 
 fidential grin at the leader's ignorance of Russian diplomacy ; 
 but it is not even out of order for one Minister to correct 
 another, before the other's face. As, for instance, on Monday, 
 when that first-class Minister and responsible statesman, Sir 
 Charles Wood, received from Lord John Russell the greatest 
 snub on record. The discussion was on the India Bill : 
 Sir Charles and Mr. Lowe against the India Reform Society — 
 these being the only two parties who are taking the slightest 
 notice of the legislation for the 150,000,000 " fellow- subjects, 
 sir!" Mr. Bright leading the India Reform Society, with a 
 vehement and unaffected contempt for Sir Charles Wood, which 
 intimidated Mr. Lowe, was urging that that portion of the 
 third clause should be omitted which enacted that the nominee 
 directors, to be created under this Bill, should be required to 
 possess the same property qualification in India stock as is to 
 be possessed by the ordinary elected directors. His reasons for 
 this were cogent and complete ; it was twelve o'clock, and 
 there was a tolerable House of members who had nothing else 
 to do, and had thought they might as well "look in;" and Mr. 
 Bright's reasons were cheered : it is Tory tactics now to cheer 
 Mr. Bright whenever he is bullying a Minister, which he gene- 
 rally is. Sir Charles Wood is remarkable for his fondness for 
 w's when he talks, and his answer was something like this : — 
 "Pwoow pwoow — wi dwont agrwee withw those honwblwe 
 gentwlemwen. Verwyw nwecwesswssarwy thwawt thwerwe 
 shwoulwd bwe cwommwunwity ofw intwerweswts betweenw 
 allw thwe dwirwectwors. Swuggewstwion qwitw awbswurwd." 
 (Hear, hear, from Mr. Lowe.) But several gentlemen agreed 
 with Mr. Bright, and said so ; and a good deal was said about 
 the general absurdity of property qualifications ; so that when 
 Mr. Bowyer got to talk the Radicalism of that point, he was 
 called to " Question." " That is the question," said Mr. 
 Bowyer, sitting down timidly and ashamed. "The question is," 
 said Mr. Bouverie, in the chair, — so and so : — •" will the honour- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 23. 195 
 
 able gentleman divide]" "Why," said Mr. Bright, "it is 
 really of the utmost importance : I beg the President of the 
 Board of Control will think over the matter." The idea of 
 Sir Charles thinking ! he crossed his arms resolutely, and mur- 
 mured, " Pwoohvv — pwoohw :" Mr. Lowe " hear-hear"-ing him. 
 "Then I'll divide," said Mr. Bright, sullenly. The Tories 
 cheered : Lord John just woke up from a deep sleep, — Sir 
 James Graham, Lord Palmerston, and Sir William Molesworth 
 (of course) were stretched snoring by his side, — and catching 
 a suspicious smile on Mr. Disraeli's face, he inquired what was 
 going on, was informed, and parted the cries of "Divide — 
 divide," by getting on his legs — Sir Charles wondering, — Mr. 
 Lowe respectful. " Ah — I think there is — ah — much weight 
 to be attached to what the honourable member for Manchester 
 says — ah — (cheers from Mr. Blackett, " Hear, hear," from Mr. 
 Bright.) 1 should have been — ah — glad — if — ah — there had 
 been a — ah — more general expression of — ah — opinion on the 
 point : but, as the House has not expressed its opinion gene- 
 rally, I — ah — think the suggestion of — ah — the honourable 
 member — had better be agreed to." (Cheers from the India 
 reformers and the Tories, Sir Charles Wood's head in his papers, 
 Mr. Lowe making for the door.) Mr. Disraeli saw that Lord 
 John had seen his intention, and congratulated the Govern- 
 ment on their admission of an error, smiling sarcastically, but 
 unable to catch the buried eye of Sir Charles, whose mortified 
 glance he would have enjoyed — all in the "noble competition" 
 of parties. The words Mr. Bright objected to were accordingly 
 omitted : the clause, as amended, was agreed to. Sir Charles 
 not saying a word ; Mr. Lowe astutely not re-appearing. Well, 
 Ministers no doubt have to endure snubs in private, but was 
 there ever such a snub offered in public? except, perhaps, Lord 
 Aberdeen's to Lord John, in the Monsell correspondence : this 
 being Lord John's retaliation, perhaps, on his next colleague in 
 rank. You would conclude that Sir Charles would resign that 
 night, and have a correspondence with Lord Aberdeen, and 
 arrange to go back with colours flying in the face of imper- 
 turbable Lord John. But not at all ; this sort of thing is selon 
 les regies in a coalition ; the rebuff positively did for Sir Charles 
 Wood ; when the India Bill was next on (Thursday), he was even 
 respectful to Mr. Bright, less flippant with his w's ; and 
 actually adopted a suggestion made by Mr. Bright — that old 
 India merchants should be eligible with old India oflScials, for 
 the nominee Directorship — adopted it with alacrity — perhaps, 
 because he saw that Lord John, aroused by Mr. Bright's 
 emphatic elocution, was making inquiries what was going on. 
 
 2 
 
196 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 24. 
 
 No. 24. 
 
 July 23. 
 Mr. Henry Drtjmmonb gave expression to a universal feeling 
 in the House of Commons when he, last evening, suggested 
 that there was no particular reason, beyond the traditional 
 custom, why the Senate should have its session in summer. 
 That is an opinion which the alternate oven heats and luke- 
 warm shower-baths of this present metropolitan July inevi- 
 tably provoke ; and though Mr. Drummond was intercepting 
 the talk about the Turkish imbroglio, he was yet cheered when 
 he succinctly pointed out that rational people generally con- 
 trived to live in the country in the summer, and in towns 
 through the cold season. There were even, from ambitious 
 but exhausted senators, cries of "Why not all the year 
 round ? " when Mr. Drummond was proffering the alternative 
 of winter to summer, and these cries surely told how exten- 
 sively the remarks made in this place, last week, on the sub- 
 ject have influenced House of Commons opinions. Mr. Drum- 
 mond took the air of a man who was being emphatically 
 logical — who had made a strange discovery, and had no doubt 
 that he had only to suggest to lead the reform. But he was very 
 incomplete ; and managed, first, by the awkward moment he 
 selected for his essay, and secondly, by the narrow views he 
 represented, so to subordinate what should have been a great 
 subject, that Lord John, as "leader," was enabled to snub 
 him, and to cut the topic in three minutes' jesting allusions. 
 Now, the suggestion, good because the most advanced of the 
 kind yet made, should not be slighted nor overlooked. The Re- 
 formers are bound to consider whether one point in their 
 charter should not refer to the inconvenient system of the 
 "sittings" of Parliament. Mr. Drummond is quite right — 
 the whole of the summer should not be spent by the governing 
 classes in the most sultry and bakey city in Europe. But it 
 does not follow, that if you don't take the whole summer 
 you must take the whole winter. 
 
 The question, as put here last week, is this — why should not 
 the legislative body sit like the administrative power ? — why 
 should not Parliament sit like the law courts — through the 
 year, with several short vacations, and one long summer re- 
 cess? A self-governed people, as the great British people 
 invariably represent themselves to be to benighted and op- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 24. 197 
 
 pressed foreigners, are interested in a question, the due dis- 
 cussion of which might lead to a new system, whereby there 
 would be a constant visible senate — not a mere spring and 
 summer senate, coming in with the exhibitions, — and a senate 
 which the self-governed people would have the perpetual 
 liberty to petition, which our self-governed people obviously 
 cherishes as a great constitutional privilege. 
 
 It is a rare privilege, as was illustrated in Mr. Layard's inter- 
 pellations last night, — a privilege which the French and Rus- 
 sians don't enjoy, though they do appear to have Executives 
 which are confidential with their respective nationalities — 'to be 
 able to ask questions of a responsible Government, — although 
 the responsible Government may not choose to answer them. 
 People who are not Great Britons regarded Mr. Layard's atti- 
 tude, and the attitude of the inquisitive House, last evening, 
 as pre-eminently ludicrous ; but then, perhaps, they cannot ap- 
 preciate the spirit of the Constitution. For a whole summer 
 have Russia and England, and Russia and France, and Russia 
 aad Turkey been quarrelling ; for a fortnight has there been a 
 war — since war was commenced when Russian troops crossed 
 the Pruth : it is acknowledged that a general war, in which 
 this country would be engaged, and for which we would have 
 heavily 'to pay, is a very possible — nay, a very probable — event ; 
 and yet the great British people remains in profound and re- 
 spectful ignorance what the quarrel is about — why there is a 
 Russo-Turkish war — what are the chances, and what would be 
 the justifications of a general war ! It is eight or ten weeks 
 since Mr. Layard — who has been at Nineveh, and was six weeks 
 at the Foreign Office, and consequently is supposed to know all 
 about the Divan, and European, as well as Asian, secret in- 
 fluences — on the same principle which justified the Irish sol- 
 dier's choice of the 1st regiment, that he would have access to 
 the commander-in-chief — first gave notice of his intention to 
 insist on explanations, for the benefit of a free people, from a 
 responsible Government. Once Mr. Layard's name was on the 
 paper for that questioning, it was etiquette that he should not 
 be disturbed, and that there should be no competition in curio- 
 sity ; and the result was that, a friend having occupied the 
 position an enemy might have taken up, Mr. Layard kept off 
 awkwardnesses from a Government at once divided and per- 
 plexed, and that, while the Government has b^en floundering 
 its way to a settlement, the self-governed nation has had its 
 funds flying up and down, great departments of its trade 
 blocked up, and its general enlightenment all amazed in 
 afflicting bewilderment and innocence. The interpellations 
 last night were a solemn farce. Mr. Layard, elaborately, 
 but timidly rotund, went well through his affectations of eager 
 interest and parenthetical indignation with Russia. Yet after 
 
1&8 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 24. 
 
 the enormous preliminary, in which patriotic impertinences to 
 Russia were discreetly uttered, the great question merely re- 
 solved itself into the standing interrogation — when would the 
 noble Lord, the member for the city of London, be good enough 
 to name a day 1 Deep silence — solemn silence : the noble Lord 
 rises, puts his hat on the table, crosses his arms, and announces 
 — (as he talks in a low voice, some one cries, " Speak up ! ") — 
 that the negotiations (St. Petersburg being such a distance 
 from Downing Street!) had in reality only just commenced^ 
 that in these circumstances Her Majesty's Ministers asked for 
 the confidence of the House — that France and Russia might 
 appeal to their nationalities if they liked — "ostentatiously," 
 said Lord John, thinking he was sneering — but that it was the 
 custom of the British Government never to consult the British 
 nation till the matter was settled ; that the best preparation 
 for war was an exhaustion of entreaties for peace — (cheers, the 
 House thinking they had got a mot) — and that the British Go- 
 vernment had not yet nearly done entreating. But, concluded 
 Lord John, tightening his arms, broadening his words, lifting 
 his voice, and looking confidential, if we fail in preserving 
 peace, and war becomes inevitable (he was glad to say France 
 was on our side), why then Her Majesty's Ministers would 
 appeal with confidence to the House to defend the national 
 honour — otherwise pay for what they couldn't help f It was a 
 melancholy exhibition for a British Senate and a British states- 
 man, who was once a great, hearty Englishman ; but the- 
 House cheered, cheered loudly, and broke up into the lobbies 
 and dining-room, and passed on to orders of the day with com- 
 placent satisfaction that this great nation was going on " all 
 right." "See what it is," members said, "to have a broad- 
 bottom Government, including so many reliable men ; see what 
 trust can be placed in them. Why, if Derby was in, we 
 couldn't rest in our beds." Doubtless Lord Derby would have 
 been more rash than Lord Aberdeen ; but that might be be- 
 cause, after all, he would be more English. It ^> remarkable 
 that Russia only consents to negotiations when she ascertains 
 Lord Palmerston has seized a predominance in the Cabinet — a 
 new fact for Mr. Urquhart. 
 
 Weary, very weary, has the session become ; heavy, very 
 heavy, are the complaints of members, even the committeeless 
 members, at the never ending, still beginning, sittings. But 
 for last night there would not have been an incident to re- 
 lieve the plodding monotony of an over useful week ; and no 
 one feels dulness more than the " business men " — these being 
 the men who are sitting the session out — who are in their 
 places at twelve, or available for discussion and division up to 
 four, who, between four and six, get a trot to their lodgings or 
 their clubs to keep abreast of their correspondence., who are Id 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 24. 199 
 
 their places again at six, asking or " hear-hear"-ing questions 
 till seven, who then plunge dyspeptically, for a cut at 
 a lukewarm joint, into the dining-room, and who afterwards, 
 between eight p.m. and two a.m. in the morning, are assiduously 
 "about" the House, getting through and pushing through 
 "business ;" all this while the debating class not turning up 
 at all, except between six and seven, to see if there 's anything 
 about Russia. Great should be the acknowledgments of the 
 nation to the " business men ;" no other country but England 
 could produce such senators ; and it happens that the national 
 acknowledgments of their virtues are very insufficient. In 
 that capital club, the House of Commons, every man knows 
 every other man, and precise estimates are taken of each by 
 all : and the debaters genuinely appreciate and admire the 
 men who could be debaters, too, if they liked, but who sup- 
 press all vanity and a good deal of ambition, and who take the 
 quiet role of the " useful members," simply because they know 
 that character is the most respectable, risking with great moral 
 courage the suspicion which invariably attaches to the useful 
 member, that he is too lenient to Government, for, of course, if 
 this class did not co-operate with the Government, whose 
 special business it is to invent and carry forward business, 
 nothing whatever would be done. See, they have worked this 
 week, on an average, eighteen hours a day, for it should be re- 
 membered that there is never a play without a rehearsal, and 
 that to prepare for the work in the House work outside is 
 required. You always get a good deal of work out of a new 
 Parliament in its first session ; firstly, because men are not 
 sick of the kind of work ; secondly, because constituents who 
 have always a relay of unayjpointed deputations in London, to 
 look after the members, invariably find out the merit of in- 
 dustry, which always looks like integrity ; and a man's per- 
 formance in his first session generally fixes or unfixes his 
 position in his seat. Notwithstanding the demirep conspiracies 
 of Derbyism, it was said at the time that the last general elec- 
 tion had returned, on the whole, an improved class of members. 
 It has not proved true with regard to debaters ; there is no 
 new prominent name this session. But it has proved quite 
 true with regard to the second rank of House of Commons 
 heroes ; and true of all parties — even of the unbusin ess-like 
 parties — the Irish party and the Radical party ; the two day 
 sittings this week on the Landlord and Tenant Bills, showing 
 that Irish members can be as sedate, practical, and rapid in 
 committee as English members ; and the debates, in committee, 
 on the Succession Tax, when Radicals had to defend the Go- 
 vernment against the country gentlemen, being decidedly cre- 
 ditable for temperate argument, and a tone of dignity, the 
 
200 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 24. 
 
 result of complete knowledge, being imparted by the elastic- 
 minded and ever-ready Chancellor of the Exchequer. The 
 "Irish party" — that 'party ^ far excellence — has done much this 
 week to counteract the disgustful impressions provoked by the 
 conduct, earlier in the session, of the Irish members en masse : 
 wisdom and tact, of the most remarkable kind, have been 
 shown by such men as Mr. Duffy, Mr. Sergeant Shee, Mr. 
 Lucas, Mr. Tristram Kennedy, and Dr. Brady, in fighting, not 
 the Government, but the jealous landlord interest, on the 
 Tenant Right question — a question now it appears confessed, 
 to be carried, like other social reforms, not by coups, but by 
 instalments. And as to the Radical members, it is not 
 invidious to point out several whose personal characters and 
 demeanours tone down the "fiightiness" of the whole party: 
 the great deficiency of the Radical party — a deficiency, because 
 they have to deal with an aristocratic club — was in " gentle- 
 men ; " and Lambeth may be complimented on the choice of 
 Mr. W. A. Wilkinson, Newcastle-on-Tyne on that of Mr. 
 Blackett, and Bath on that of Mr. Phinn — all three successes 
 in their first session. The mere talkers, of all parties, 
 have been unpopular in the House during the whole session ; 
 and only very crack talkers indeed would be endured in 
 July. The session is now given up to the business men : 
 they are masters of the House, and the House, at their 
 dictation, puts debaters down, and forbids debates. Speeches 
 have been inexorably forbidden (until last night, when speeches 
 conveyed news) all this week. The two most powerful classes 
 in this country — the attorneys and the newspapers — were com- 
 peting in the House, on Wednesday, for a remission of taxa- 
 tion ; and both classes are largely represented, and by debaters ; 
 yet the House would hear neither side ; but, having got Mr. 
 Gladstone's decision in favour of the newspapers, insisted on 
 an immediate division. The same day, the Nunneries Inspec- 
 tion Bill was on. A month ago, there was agitation, excite- 
 ment, even passion about this bill. There was a debate as 
 eager and earnest as has been heard for years in the House of 
 Commons. But the adjourned debate on Wednesday was the lan- 
 guor of a pro forma put-off. Mr. Drummond was, out of habit, 
 eccentric ; but the tumbling was the tumbling of a tired acrobat. 
 Mr. Whiteside was bigoted out of a narrow nature ; but he 
 limped in his declamation, and stumbled against ceaseless cries 
 of " Divide." The rest of the speakers were of the fifth-rate class, 
 — the first class saw that there was not sufficient interest left to 
 make it worth their while to risk position by oratory on such an 
 equivocal theme. Oddly enough, however, the debate was again 
 adjourned — as if the House wanted to hear more ! This was 
 Lord Palmerston's cleverness — which is always the more con- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 24. 201 
 
 spicuous that he is always unscrupulous — a great point in 
 " management." By inducing an adjournment he suspended 
 the whole question till next session : and your Whig statesman 
 always thinks he wins when he gains a session. Next year the 
 difficulties will have accumulated ; Christian bigotry, rested in 
 the recess, will be rampant in time for all uncharitableness next 
 session ; and we shall then have another struggle before we 
 see this Protestant proposal put in the mild shape it had as- 
 sumed on Wednesday — that it be referred to a committee of 
 inquiry, — meanwhile government in Ireland being rendered 
 more and more difficult, and pious society in England more 
 and more ridiculous. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer profits by this legislative 
 wearii^ess. Perhaps he will not quite escape an exposition 
 from Mr. Disraeli of the collapse in the city of his commuta- 
 tion scheme. But, ad interim^ he travels rapidly through his 
 Budget. He puts people down with great force ; and is it not 
 excusable, after such a session, of the epic of which he has been 
 the hero, and the work of which he has got through with un- 
 paralleled success, he should now and then lose his temper % 
 He was answering Sir John Pakington on Monday on the 
 Succession Duty ; Sir John wished to explain, and removed his 
 hat, the signal that he was going to rise. '^ No, no," exclaimed 
 Mr. Gladstone, gesturing at Sir John with mesmeric passes, 
 "don't, don't; it's quite unnecessary; you are wasting the 
 time of the House." Sir John stared, but kept still ; the 
 country gentlemen murmured indignantly ; the House smiled 
 and wondered. It is not usual, that sort of treatment of an 
 Opposition " leader," but it 's very natural — Mr. Gladstone is 
 wearied of Sir John, and his intellect revolts at the dulness of 
 these squires, and at the glaring political selfishness which 
 they shamefully attempt to perpetuate, in resisting a tax when 
 it touches themselves, which for years they have sedulously and ■ 
 contentedly imposed on personal property. At any rate the 
 broken and scattered Tory cohorts have to endure a scorn from 
 the man whom they attempted to thrust out of the Carlton, and 
 whom they hate with a concentrated hate — more malignant 
 even than the hatred they bore to Peel when they were baffled 
 by that glorious renegade ; and it is also clear that the House, 
 which notices the irritation of Mr. Gladstone's manners, is 
 daily more and more content with and indulgent to the Finance 
 Minister : the debaters, because he is in the first rank of their 
 class — equal to Disraeli and Palmerston ; the business men, 
 because he is unweariedly laborious, conscientiously minute, 
 and miraculously quick; all, because intense earnestness, 
 which is his forte, carries all before it. Not content with the 
 weight of his Budget, he has superadded other work, which 
 
202 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 24. 
 
 other men would have left to subordinates. It was, no doubt, 
 violent pressure on the part of his colleagues which induced 
 him to give up the Savings Bank Bill on Thursday ; and his 
 undertaking it at all testifies to a conscientiousness which Sir 
 Charles Wood would find it dififtcult to understand — Sir Charles 
 having been chosen Finance Minister when the plunderings of 
 these banks occurred, and having remained Finance Minister 
 several years afterwards, without stirring an inch to protect 
 the classes interested. The different morale of Sir Charles 
 Wood is amply illustrated in his conduct of the India Bill, as, 
 indeed, is also, in the committee debates, his inferior character, 
 for it is painfully plain that he talks without influence, and 
 leads without control — the conversationalists on both sides 
 treating him with unaffected and perhaps unconscious con- 
 tempt. As indicated here last week. Lord John Russell gave 
 Sir Charles no aid to useful position in conducting the Bill ; 
 when Sir Charles' own chief snubbed him, it was not likely that 
 great delicacy would be shown by Mr. Bright, or that the 
 nabobs, who have come out in the committee, and are lively in 
 the dog-days, would be deferential to a man whose palpable 
 meagreness of Indian knowledge they detect and despise. The 
 Government, in fact, has been represented more by Mr. Lowe 
 than by Sir Charles ; Lord John, not Sir Charles, has been 
 talked at on the great points ; and Mr. Bright has been kept 
 off chiefly by Sir James Hogg, who is the dignified and decla- 
 matory champion of the Company, and who is always discover- 
 ing with "deep regret and astonishment" — Sir James Weir 
 Hogg, with the traditions of the India bar, is given to expan- 
 sive phrases — that Mr. Bright's tendency in committee discus- 
 sions is to be personal. Mr. Bright is so, and has always been ; 
 and his power in the House and in the country is the conse- 
 quence. His life has been passed in a guerilla warfare — would 
 .it had been at the head of a more organised corps ! — against 
 infamous political systems ; and the condition of success, as in 
 other guerilla warfare, was the constant capture of chiefs. He 
 was wrong not to give up the name he alluded to on Thursday 
 night ; he is wrong not to tell all he knows of individual and 
 private influence in connection with the Indian question ; for Sir 
 James would be more grieved and more astonished than ever, 
 to learn that Mr. Bright's fault in the India Bill agitation was, 
 that he had not spoken out sufficiently. Both he and Mr. 
 Wilkinson — Mr. Bright's authority — should at once have de- 
 clared their facts for this strong assertion of the prevalence of 
 peculation in the Indian system ; and though very little was 
 lost by the delay of a day (till last ni,2:ht), when both honour- 
 able gentlemen behaved well — Mr. Wilkinson, for a not well- 
 known and not practised member, and in a very painful posi- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 24. 203 
 
 tion, with wonderful tact and temper — the objection remains 
 to their behaviour — ^that on the second day they practically 
 left the matter where it was on the first — that is, they left the 
 House without the ^'name," and still enable the virtually- 
 indignant Directors and their sycophants waiting presidential 
 governments (as, for instance, Lord Jocelyn), to ride off upon 
 a general denial to a general charge — the one, for the ignorant 
 public, being just as trustworthy as the other. Messrs. Bright 
 and Wilkinson will perhaps have succeeded in deepening the 
 universal but vague impression that India is plundered and 
 marketed by Indian "authorities ;" but when they had an op- 
 portunity of pressing such an accusation home, to the complete 
 explosion of a disgraceful accusation, it was a mistake in tactics 
 not to have the original accuser (Mr. Wilkinson's brother) 
 brought to the bar, and there questioned, whether it were more 
 honourable to continue to withhold a name to the conceal- 
 ment of which his " personal honour" was pledged, or to suc- 
 cumb to the command, if it should be issued, of a House com- 
 posed of honourable men, and able to judge whether the rule 
 as to "personal honour" was not susceptible of exemptions. At 
 any rate, Mr. Bright should have managed better than to let 
 Lord John, who was terrified at the consequences of an earnest 
 inquiry, shelve the accusation on the plea that it was too 
 "general" to be entertained against a body so renowned for 
 honour as the East India Directors ! The House didn't believe 
 the denial — did not rely on Lord John's plea — had, in short, a 
 strong tendency to believe unreservedly the obviously veracious 
 Mr. Wilkinson — yet the House allowed this grave business to 
 be thus immorally shirked ; and that would not have been the 
 result if Mr. Bright had been in his average defiant mental 
 condition. 
 
 Fix the responsibility of a system on individuals, and you 
 reform the system ; to attack a corporation or a Wehmgericht, 
 is to attack an abstraction — for more than Thurlow's excellent 
 reasons. "Name, name," should be the Radical cry, while 
 Radicalism has work to do ; and Mr. Bright is in error to be 
 considerate. It will be curious to observe the results of the 
 appointment of the committee, obtained by Mr. Bright him- 
 self, to inquire into the conduct of the Earl Fitzwilliam in the 
 Peterborough election. If the committee report that this peer 
 did violate a principle of the constitution, — what then? Even 
 if the report be mild and forgiving, a great gain is still secured ; 
 a precedent at which every peer may tremble. If Earl Fitz- 
 william, a Whig lord, be checked in doing what he likes with 
 his own, can Tory lords escape? Lord John, who has a nephew 
 returning three members to the House of Commons, assented 
 to the committee ; but did Lord Palmerston — Lord Palmer- 
 
204 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 24. 
 
 ston, who contested Sligo the other day with a Lord of the 
 Treasury ? Mr. Bright, in fastening on an individual to illus- 
 trate a system, advanced incalculably the cause of Reform. 
 But he should follow up that bold stroke, he should arrange for 
 Radical claqueurs to cry ceaselessly, "N^ame, name;" and, 
 when the whole peerage has been trotted through the com- 
 mittee corridors of the Commons, the age of rotten boroughs 
 will have ceased. 
 
PARLIAMEKTART RETROSPECT, NO. 25. 205 
 
 No. 25. 
 
 July 30. 
 The Senate of this enlightened country still contentedly con- 
 tinues in profound ignorance of the foreign policy of the 
 British Government ; and while Russia is solving, without a 
 reference to the West, the problem of the East, the great British 
 House of Commons is legislating, with pretentious airs of 
 omniscient power, on — cabs, accidents in mines, the truck sys- 
 tem, and a new Westminster Bridge. That is the business 
 week. Parliament sits through July, not because Russia is 
 menacing, but because points as to hackney carriages, mine 
 accidents, dog-carts, and the new road to Lambeth, have to be 
 settled. Russia crosses the Pruth — the British Government 
 crosses Westminster Bridge. Turkey may be destroyed — the 
 House of Commons must nevertheless legislate upon the " back 
 fares " of metropolitan cabs. Mr. Disraeli taunted Peel that 
 he was degrading the House of Commons into a vestry ; he 
 might suggest to the Coalition that it leaves to the Senate 
 topics less noble than those which are familiar to tap-rooms. 
 
 The conduct of the Government and of Parliament in rela- 
 tion to that question now raised by Russia, and on which the 
 future of Europe so vitally depends, is alike unprecedented. 
 From the beginning of the negotiations to the end, the Govern- 
 ment, which had Lord Redclifte to supply facts, and Lord 
 Palmerston to supply comments, has been fully cognisant of 
 the real designs, and of the settled purpose of Russia. The 
 lobby and the club talk of Members of Parliament has been 
 consistent from the first ; and it indicates a profound disbelief 
 that any one is in earnest but Russia, and a profound convic- 
 tion that Russia will never resign the Principalities — therefore 
 knowing that, England will not enter on a war, or even on 
 the simulation of war. Hence a perfect agreement between 
 the House and the Ministry that silence should be preserved ; 
 the condition of carrying the farce of diplomacy to a successful 
 termination being that no one should be allowed to expose it. 
 From the first to the last the intention of Government and 
 Parliament was to dishonour England by a treachery to Turkey ; 
 and not until the perfidy is accomplished is the next act 
 in the farce — a debate — to be permitted. Yet, if England is a 
 consenting party to the dishonour, which she obviously is, why 
 not 1 The governing classes are never ashamed to acknow- 
 ledge that their tendencies are Russian. And the commercial 
 
206 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 25. 
 
 classes, as usual, see only the immediate balance sheet, and let 
 Lord Aberdeen understand they will not Jiave war. They do 
 not see that there is war. England commenced war when she 
 advanced her fleet to Besika Bay. Another tvjo days' sail 
 would have cost not a farthing more. The cost of destroying the 
 Russian fleet and Russian prestige in the East would just have 
 been lOOOZ. for gunpowder — or say Sir Charles Wood's salary 
 for one year ! Pity it is that the Coalition did not include a 
 MAN — who could have taken and forced on Government, on Par- 
 liament, and on the governing classes, some such view. Who 
 could have shown that Lord Aberdeen talked to the citizens 
 on Saturday like a courteous old lady, hating quarrels, and not 
 like a First Minister who holds the thunderbolts of a great 
 nation in his hand. Who could have suggested to a timid 
 people, making too much money and getting too high wages, 
 that Lord Aberdeen does not preserve peace : that we are 
 always at war : and that we should feel a distant war with 
 Russia as little as we feel a war with the King of Ava. Who 
 could have reminded Parliament that senates lost in questions 
 as to cabs and dog-carts are losing every pretension to the fear 
 or respect of every potentate but cab-drivers and dog-fanciers. 
 Elephants are, no doubt, the more admirable animals that 
 they can rend trees and pick up pins — but if they prefer 
 the picking up pins % 
 
 In the Lords the fact of the day is, that Lord Derby 
 has not got a majority against Mr. Gladstone's Budget. 
 And that his party should have repudiated his lead will 
 be less galling to the ambitious but placid orator than the 
 still more cruel sentence — that he is, as a debater, a bore. This 
 was signified to him sufficiently on Monday ; the Lords would 
 no longer even affect to listen to his tortuous commonplaces 
 and rotund truisms. They yawned, they walked about, they 
 chatted, they slept. Listen to this enlightened and chivalrous 
 English Peer, shamefully attempting to make them ''- hear, 
 hear " an argument that land should not pay the tax which 
 personal property has long paid, they clearly would not ; and 
 they didn't care for his knowing their obstinacy. They were, 
 indeed, as indifferent to Lord Derby talking as they are to 
 Lord Monteagle talking ; and comparison can no further go. 
 Stung by that indifference, what could Lord Derby have 
 thought of the division, which told him that his day was over 
 even with his own order ? Tories, to account for the destruc- 
 tion of the Tory party, have been assiduously saying and 
 writing that " it 's all Disraeli." But now we see that in the 
 stronghold of Toryism, on the question on which of all ques- 
 tions the landlords would appear to be disposed to take the 
 selfish, and therefore party side, Lord Derby doesn't lead 100 
 followers. An exploded politician — what then is to become of 
 
PARLIAMENTAEY RETROSPECT^ NO. 25. 207 
 
 him 1 He has a refuge in the press. Great journalists, who 
 write of statesmen without even visiting the scene of states- 
 manship — which is as clever as criticising theatrical per- 
 formances without ever going to the theatre — sustain the old 
 cant which was got up when Lord Derby had not yet been 
 tried, and go through the old formulas of respectful puifing of 
 pretentious peers — talking of this "able man," who has broken 
 down in every function he ever assumed, and of the " brilliant 
 speeches " which even the House of Lords will not listen to. 
 And while the press maunders on in bolstering up his repu- 
 tation among his countrymen, Lord Derby may still have heart 
 enough left to face the sneers and the smiles of the club — viz. 
 Parliament. In the same way Charles Kean, having manipu- 
 lated the free list, and made sure that there is not a connoisseur 
 in the House, can afford to be indifferent to the stares of his 
 brother actors. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli has done a good deal this week in the endea- 
 vour to damage Mr. Gladstone's reputation, political and finan- 
 cial. He was politely savage, on Thursday, in his opening 
 attack ; and he really seemed as if he had at last mastered 
 the Commutation scheme, about which he was so painfully 
 puzzled when it first appeared. But Mr. Gladstone's reply, 
 yesterday, was conclusive — winning for its candour ; and he 
 disarmed all further criticism by admitting the full extent of 
 his failure, so far as the experiment has yet gone, while legi- 
 timately taking credit for a fair probability — that if Russia 
 had not unsettled Europe (how the Chancellor must curse the 
 Coalition foreign policy !) he would very likely have got the 
 settlement he wanted on the Stock Exchange. What had Mr. 
 Disraeli to say after that 1 Why, nothing ; and his small in- 
 terjectionary protest, when the House was weary of the subject, 
 against the reference to European disturbances, was a weakness 
 and a piece of ill humour, visible in his bad manner, quite 
 unworthy of Mr. Disraeli. Why Disraeli, who has been studi- 
 ously idle during the session, and who has passed all his legis- 
 lative time in lolling on the Opposition benches, cracking jokes 
 with Lord Henry Lennox, or in lounging about the lobbies, 
 astonishing the inhabitants of the refreshment stands by his 
 weird apparition, should so suddenly brisken up into malignant 
 activity on a question on which it was impossible, however he 
 might injure Mr. Gladstone, that he could make a reputation 
 for himself, is a perfectly inexplicable matter. There is an 
 immemorial right in authors who have failed to convert them- 
 selves into critics ; and a Chancellor of the Exchequer who 
 brought a Ministry down with his Budget — at a season of 
 dead principles and profound political apathy, and when a 
 good financial scheme would even have kept the friends of 
 Louis Napoleon, of Stafford, and of Beresford in power — may 
 
208 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT^ NO. 25. 
 
 deem himself fully entitled to carp at a partial mistake in his 
 too felicitous successor. Mr. Gladstone, yesterday, won the per- 
 sonal sympathies of the House, and developed (which was 
 desirable, for he has latterly been tediously lost in details) a 
 perfect mastery of all the features of European finance ; and 
 as for the public — that outside the Stock Exchange — it takes 
 men and things, in Mr. Gladstone's favourite way, "as a whole," 
 and judging him by his entire Budget, of which this scheme 
 was a part, his countrymen have assigned to him the position 
 they formerly gave to Peel — in a commercial nation the best 
 financier being necessarily the first statesman. 
 
 Sir John Pakington has been more fortunate than Mr. 
 Disraeli in an Opposition function — annoying the Government. 
 For the first time in his life (on Thursday — on the East India 
 Company's salt monopoly) he happened" to be right; and he 
 established another precedent — ^for the first time in his life he 
 happened on that day to be in a majority — two circumstances 
 which were evidently great sources of astonishment to himself 
 and the House, but particularly to Sir Charles Wood, who per- 
 haps had not quite recovered by that time from his perplexity 
 at a sage senate agreeing to raise Jiis salary. Sir Charles has 
 got so well through his India bill (nobody even taking any notice 
 of his marvellous introductory five hours' speech, and the cele- 
 brated snub he received from Lord John, which everybody po- 
 litely afiected not to observe, being amply balanced by the extra 
 salary of 1500^. a year, which Vernon Smith, who is waiting for 
 a vacancy in the Coalition, proposed,' and which the House was 
 too careless to denounce as a job, but rather permitted as a 
 capital joke), that he was puzzled at this supplementary oppo- 
 sition, tagged on by Sir John, when the committee had been 
 got through ; and it was evident, from his haw-haw-ish and pooh- 
 pooh-ish air in replying to the Droitwich baronet, that he 
 never dreamed of the defeat that he immediately received, and 
 which should never have been allowed, for the very reason for 
 which the unwilling House has been intimidated into passing 
 this wretched bill — that it weakened the moral power of Eng- 
 land in India. The natives might not have comprehended our 
 sesthetical difficulty about double Governments; but they 
 understand their own politico-oeconomical perplexity as to 
 salt; and the practical efiiect on their minds of Thursday 
 night's division will be this — that they will believe, with great 
 proj)riety, that Parliament has rebuked the East India Com- 
 pany for what the ryots regard, with great propriety, as an 
 infamous monopoly of what is in India a first article of sub- 
 sistence. The result will test whether or not the House of 
 Commons might not safely have put the Government in a 
 minority (had it been so disposed, — which is very doubtful ; 
 for most members have relatives who hold India stock, and 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT^ NO. 25. 209 
 
 most members are practical men) on the main points of the 
 bill. If we do not see a revolution, or a murder of a collector, 
 Sir Charles Wood will have been convicted of obtaining 
 an Act under false pretences. There are, however, other tests 
 at work of native endurance. It appears that the India 
 (native) newspapers are going to translate Sir Charles Wood's 
 five hours' speech. If England retains her great dependency 
 after that, she is sure of her for ever. 
 
 England, at any rate, has paid India the compliment of 
 agreeing to give a Yorkshire squire 5000^. a-year. to govern her : 
 of putting the Minister for India on a level with the Minister 
 for all the colonies. Nay, Lord Palmerston, who spoke for the 
 blushing and would-be unconscious Wood on the occasion, 
 induced the House of Commons to consider whether it was not 
 desirable to have in the Indian department some man, to be 
 called a Permanent Secretary, who should know something 
 about India! That sounds an extravagant report of Lord 
 Palmerston ; but — read his speech. He spoke for half an hour 
 on the advantage which it would be when a Minister for 
 India was appointed, to find in his bureau a gentleman, high 
 in character, and reliable in tone, who could guide the Indian 
 Minister on Indian afiairs ! He referred to the advantages he 
 had experienced from such an arrangement in the Home Office, 
 where he was very new; and; he referred, generally, to the 
 facilities which such a system gave to all new Governments. 
 That is — up to this moment India has repeatedly been governed 
 by men who knew nothing, and who, until they had educated 
 themselves at her expense, could get to know nothing of her 
 afiairs ! What a satire, from one of our first parliamentary 
 heroes, on our whole parliamentary system ! 
 
210 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 26. 
 
 No. 26. 
 
 August 6. 
 The "intelligent foreigner" — Nicholas included in the class — 
 cannot suppose that English attention is at all fixed on Russian 
 affairs, if they read our parliamentary reports. The Moniteur 
 makes much of the fact, that there was a Cabinet Council on 
 Saturday, which sat four hours ; but against that fact Russian 
 diplomatists will set another — that the House of Commons 
 sat an average of fourteen out of every twenty-four through- 
 out the week ; and that only once, incidentally, was the " diffi- 
 culty" on the Pruth and the Danube referred to. What can 
 the "despotic system" apprehend, when it sees its favourite 
 aversion, Palmerston, placidly engaged in contesting whether 
 he should "go on" with a Truck Act, or "withdraw" a Smoke 
 Nuisance Abatement Bill ? Can Aberdeen be supposed to be 
 active as to Turkey, when he is found making the longest and 
 profoundest speech which he has delivered this session, on the 
 subject of chicory admixtures ? Can Gladstone be considering 
 the state of the East, when he is furtively attempting to pass 
 a Colonial Church Regulation Bill, or openly exhibiting his 
 anxiety to get the session over as soon as ever his Budget is 
 quite through % Can Cardwell really mean resistance to Russia, 
 when he refuses to accept Captain Scobell's amendment on the 
 Pilotage Bill — intended to keep foreigners off the command of 
 swift British steamers? Graham may be really nervous or 
 conscientious about Russia, for he is making the navy 
 efficient, and his work lies in a defensive and preparative 
 direction. But, watching other Ministers just now, the intelli- 
 gent foreigner would come to the conclusion that England is 
 doing anything but calculating on war. The aspect of Sir 
 William Molesworth, for instance, during the week, particu- 
 larly when asleep, has been highly pacific; for even when 
 awake he is only describing the inroads of French fleas upon 
 the British embassy at Paris, or questioning the financial genius 
 of that great artist in confectionary, Sir Charles Barry. And as 
 to Sir James Graham's secretary, the once lively and vigorous 
 Bernal Osborne, he made his first appearance for the summer 
 on Thursday, and then only to suggest — even in that showing 
 an original turn of mind — that not a bad way of ventilating 
 the House of Commons would be to open the windows — an 
 idea which never occurred to any of the scientific " authori- 
 ties"! In fact, looking not alone at Ministers, but at the con- 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 26. 211 
 
 fident industry with which the House wades through petty 
 details of " business," how is the Emperor of Russia to suppose 
 that we are paying any attention to his movements, or how is 
 Abd-u-'l-Medjid to believe that a people so careless about a 
 question which affects Europe so deeply can really mean to 
 save him in his extremity? The trifling nature of the work of 
 the House of Commons last week was moralised upon in this 
 place with proper effect; and some reason was shown for the 
 argument which assumes that the plan of the French Chamber 
 to class secondary "subjects" into large committees, is very 
 preferable to the system of talking about everything and 
 effecting very little, which we continue to adopt. But this 
 week the evil is more flagrantly conspicuous; and the House 
 of Commons looks less and less dignified. The House has de- 
 voted a large share of the week to silly drivel, all about itself; 
 at the very end of a wasted session members affecting to set 
 about putting their House in order. Intelligent foreigners 
 might pay us the compliment of supposing that the discussion 
 on Thursday, in supply, on the lighting and ventilation of the 
 chamber, had a hidden meaning ; and that the Radicals were 
 attempting by innuendos to advance the cause of reform. 
 
 But in various other ways has the House been confessing the 
 absurdities of its constitution and management. Lord John 
 Russell agrees with any one and every one who says or states 
 anything to bring the House of Commons into contempt — 
 which is a fine trait in the leader of it. For instance, he led a 
 good cheer when the chairman in supply on Thursday, came to 
 the vote of £30,000 for the commissions of briefless barristers 
 who have been inquiring into "corrupt practices" at various 
 places. The barristers have been paid by the day, and, sensible 
 fellows, they have spun the inquiries out with great adroitness; 
 and the House was rather delighted than not at having to pay 
 them £30,000. It's a sum to suggest that the House (which 
 doesn't pay all the taxes) is really in earnest in trying to get 
 purity. Then, on the same subject, it was incidentally men- 
 tioned that, in consequence of the refusal of the House to 
 issue certain writs, the constitutional complement of mem- 
 bers will be short through the recess by sixteen ; and Lord 
 John was asked if that wasn't very dreadful : at which Lord 
 John smiled, and said, with a laugh, he didn't know ; but that 
 he supposed it wasn't to be helped, if the House wouldn't 
 issue the writs. Then, again, when Mr. Thomas Duncombe 
 made a motion about the constitution of Election Petition 
 Committees, stating, in a parenthesis, the enormous number of 
 petitions against members during this Parliament, Lord John 
 quite agreed with Mr. Duncombe, and wis not at all shocked 
 at the hideous array of shameful statistics. All this is very 
 strange in the leader of the House : and the opportunity may 
 
 p 2 
 
212 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 26. 
 
 be taken to point out, again, how completely Lord John Russell 
 has abnegated the functions which attach to his official or 
 quasi-official position. It was his business as leader, as it was 
 his tactic as contingent reformer, to use all the materials which 
 the election petition committee's proceedings gave him for the 
 furtherance of real measures to redeem the character of the 
 House in the country : and throughout the session Lord John 
 Russell has lazily left the whole question of electoral corrup- 
 tion to accident ; as, on Tuesday and Thursday, idly patronis- 
 ing the struggles of independent members, and loosely endors- 
 ing any sort of plan or moral, and always evidencing a very 
 lax indifference to the whole question about which, next session, 
 he is, as party man, to be so professionally anxious. Of the 
 enlightened constituencies of England he leaves eight or ten 
 unrepresented, because they are so inveterately corrupt that 
 they cannot be entrusted with their constitutional privilege ; 
 and we are paying briefless barristers at the rate of £1000 per 
 week for taking evidence to confirm a conviction ; and when 
 the astounding fact is forced on his attention. Lord John 
 gently grins and raises that collective parliamentary hilarity 
 which stenographers report as " a laugh." Laughing at the 
 vice is, in this day, the best way to get at the Reform j but 
 what Lord John laughs at is the idea of his being at all active 
 in doing his duty ; it not being, this year, a party necessity 
 with the Whigs in the Cabinet to raise a Radical cry ; and 
 even of a good simulation of earnestness next year there can- 
 not be much hope, after the systematic conduct of Lord John, 
 during these six months, in leaving everything to chance. Lord 
 Brougham interjects a hope, in the Lords, that his noble friend 
 does not mean a "large measure of Reform;" to which hope 
 all the Coalition lords said, " hear, hear," and to which the ex- 
 tremer Whig lords, who haven't got their cue, say nothing ; and 
 Lord Brougham is very likely to be gratified. Lord John him- 
 self is not very eager to change the character of the club 
 which cultivates politeness and so endures him ; and of the 
 tendency of his Peelite colleagues there was an unexpected 
 illustration in the treatment which Sir James Graham ex- 
 tended, on Tuesday, to Mr. C. Berkeley's bill for forbidding 
 music and banners in election contests. Sir James was asto- 
 nished at such an attempt to deprive the British subject of his 
 immemorial privilege to run candidates like jockeys — by 
 colours — and to uphold free and independent spirit by villanous 
 music ; Sir James was, in fact, in his way, as indignant as 
 Colonel Sibthorpe, who was very wrath ; and, accordingly. Sir 
 James leading the Ministerial side at the moment, Mr. C. 
 Berkeley was snubbed and put down. What could the intelli- 
 gent foreigner have thought of that debate % One half the 
 House of Commons maintaining that this enlightened country 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 26. 213 
 
 went mad, at election times, under the influence of red silk 
 and trumpets ; and the other half of the House contending 
 that the enlightened country liked this sort of thing, and 
 ought not to be deprived of this — one of its public amuse- 
 ments ! 
 
 But, finally, what would the intelligent foreigner have 
 thought of the speech, and consequent laughter, of Sir G. 
 Brooke, on Monday, after the division on a clause in an Irish 
 land bill 1 Sir G. Brooke complained, almost with tears in his 
 eyes, that it was shameful — that it was — for the House of 
 Commons to divide without even having heard the debate ! 
 The intelligent foreigner could hardly understand the plaint 
 without being present ; but had he been (as he could have 
 been on Monday, when strangers, mysel;f among them, first saw 
 the operation of dividing), he would be bewildered at one of 
 the workings of representative institutions. For the first time 
 strangers were not ordered out on a division. Take the 
 division in question. The clause had been discussed by a 
 House of twenty; ten Irish "Liberal" members, who affect 
 to bother the Government that has bought them, and 
 ten Irish Orange members, who vote continuously against 
 the people, and oppose every concession to the tenant, as 
 antagonistic, which the tenant is in Ireland, to the land- 
 lord. Each of the twenty had spoken ten times (it is 
 in Committee), and then they agreed to divide. " Division ! " 
 roar the door-keepers ; the Sergeant-at-Arms rings the bell, 
 which rings (by electricity) a dozen other bells ; and " Division 
 — division" is the cry in every room of the building. The 
 clerk at the table puts a heavy sand time-glass on the table ; it 
 is a two-minute glass, and when the sand has run down, the doors 
 are to be closed. But two minutes are enough. As the bells 
 ring, members rush in, in dozens, in twenties, in fifties, in a 
 rapid stream of M.P.-dom. Some of them have been chatting 
 about the lobbies or in the ladies' gallery, others have been in 
 the library, and it is only a few have been in the dining-room, 
 for it is nine o'clock, and therefore most have been in the 
 smoking-room. As they rush in, they are ignorant of what has 
 been going on and what they are to divide about ; but as they 
 run they learn ; a whisper or a word, as they pass some trusted 
 friend or official, is enough, and they take the lobby that belongs 
 to them by an instinct. On this occasion, a few Irish Orange 
 members are opposing the Government, and for guidance to 
 the Coalitionists, it is enough that they see where Hayter stands. 
 Past the smiling Hayter they trot, in confident — touchingly 
 confident — submission. In the lobby, when they have decided 
 on their vote, they ask and hear, " What's the question ?" And 
 so well understood is the Freemasonry system of winks and 
 nods that few have ever to regret their choice, or to record a 
 regret. And as it was on Monday, so it is on all divisions : 
 
214 PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 26. 
 
 the majority, disgorged of the smoking-room, are ever in bliss- 
 ful ignorance of the debate. Sir G. Brooke was a simpleton 
 to complain of the established system of an enlightened 
 senate : and it was natural that Lord John, rising as leader to 
 answer the taunt of a freshman in that knowing club, should 
 raise a laughing cheer when he said that he should be sorry to 
 see the day when members of the House would not thus always 
 testify their confidence in their selected chiefs. It is well un- 
 derstood, in and out of doors, that only once in a decade does a 
 debate influence a division ; and it would be a mere farce for 
 all those who vote to sit through the dreary talk of over-con- 
 scientious senators, who are bores, and worse than bores, in 
 July. But that being so, why continue the lunatic arrange- 
 ments developed for the first time to the uninitiated on Mon- 
 day, and carried out, to their great amazement, through the 
 week 1 It 's perhaps premature, though the age of talk is 
 getting over, to suggest that senatorial orators should write 
 their speeches and send them, unspoken, to the papers. But, at 
 least, why does not the House come to an agreement to avoid 
 those ludicrous trots past Mr. Hayter? The farce is confessed : 
 and why not therefore a common system of proxies, — or votes 
 by telegraph, — or by post 1 The House could then sit till 
 September, and yet be on the moors or the Rhine, or the Medi- 
 terranean. To keep a House you only want 40 members ; and 
 Mr. Hayter could pick up that sacred number from the Irish 
 patriots who vote with Keogh. 
 
 Certainly, if a country, with not too many public amuse- 
 ments, cannot make up its mind to give up House of Commons 
 oratory, which does provide us with occasional passages and 
 parenthetical scenes that are more than amusing, we could 
 afford to do without what are called debates in the House of 
 Lords. Observe the proceedings last night, in that august but 
 supererogatory assembly. The India Bill stood for a second 
 reading, and the House was unusually full — that is, in addition 
 to the steady attendance of seventeen old peers, there were ten 
 or twenty middle-aged peers, and ten or twenty more quite young 
 peers, who, you could see, by the attention they directed from 
 the old peers to the young peeresses, were there more incompli- 
 ment to ladies than to lords. That was a House collected 
 for the revision of Commons legislation upon the government of 
 " the 150,000,000 fellow-subjects, sir." But what did it do ? 
 Why, it said, " Hear, hear," when Lord Truro, wofully worn out 
 in body and mind, talked an ancient lawyer's routineries on 
 that question of the supply and demand world, which he has 
 not a notion of, as it was involved in the Combination of Work- 
 men Bill— just up, and in Lord Kinnaird's timid hands, from 
 the Commons. Lord Truro, obeying a tendency to consult the 
 aristocratic suspicions of the audience he always failed with, 
 considered it a dangerous bill ; and the old peers, middle-aged 
 
PARLIAMENTARY RETROSPECT, NO. 26. 215 
 
 peers, 'and young peers, who didn't know anything about the 
 matter, were ready to agree with Lord Truro — on matters they 
 don't know anything about, 'the House of Lords always agree- 
 ing to follow the grey-headed law lords, who are supposed to 
 form a sort of link between the peers and mankind. They 
 had no doubt whatever that the first grey-headed law lord 
 was right when a second grey-headed law lord (the Lord Chan- 
 cellor) rose, and from similar motives and analogous ignorance, 
 abused the bill ; and the result was, that an excellent measure, 
 embodying a good principle, and promising to act as the basis 
 for future better measures in the same direction, was thrown 
 out ; after which the class of capitalists cannot say that the 
 class of landowners is unsympathetic. Well, if that debate 
 could have been prevented by an arrangement which should 
 keep peers at, instead of in, their seats, the peers would have 
 been, this Saturday, more popular with the democracy ; for the 
 result, without a reason offered, would have been a less imperti- 
 nence to the people, and to the Commons, than such a result 
 with such inadequate and malapropos reasons. Then, of course, 
 it is obvious that it would have been an advantage to the public 
 and to the steady attendance of old lords, if such a debate as 
 there was last night on the India Bill could have been prevented. 
 We submit without much murmuring to the Lords voting 
 on what the Commons have voted ; but is it not too bad to the 
 most constitutional of us to expect us to read how the Lords 
 debated what the Commons have already exhausted ? The 
 Commons had not left the Lords a fresh word to say on the 
 India Bill ; and yet at the India Bill the Lords went last 
 night, as if the subject had suddenly turned up, quite new, 
 and there was an intense eagerness to hear all about it. Con- 
 stitutionally, the fiction is akin to stage asides, that the Lords 
 never know what has passed in the Commons ; and the conse- 
 quence of keeping up so insane a delusion, is the farce which, 
 neither to their dignity nor credit, the Upper House, last night, 
 performed. Their Lordships might take this hint : that they 
 have only one chance of prolonging, or, rather, renewing their 
 vitality ; and that is by getting rid of the fiction — acknow- 
 ledging the fact, and dividing the topics of the day with the 
 Commons ; in other words, by anticipating the Commons in one 
 half of its privileges — of being interesting. This lenient 
 British age only requires its Governors to amuse it ; and the 
 Lords could be as ludicrous as the Commons, if they would 
 only try. 
 
GENEEAL EEMAEKS ON THE SESSION. 
 
 August 27. 
 THErvE is a remarkable consentaneousness in the comments of 
 the journals upon the Session of Parliament which closed last 
 week. By one and all, whatever the reserved references to the 
 Ministers, the House of Commons, as a body, is congratulated 
 upon the extent of the work it has accomplished, upon the man- 
 ner of the performance, and generally upon its capacity to deal 
 with and direct the complicated affairs of this enormous 
 empire. Reading these compliments, and studying these eulo- 
 giums, it requires a mental exertion to remember, that by 
 universal consent the next session is to open with debates 
 upon the best method of revolutionizing the House of Com- 
 mons — upon the best method of obtaining Parliamentary Re- 
 form! 
 
 If it be a fact that the House of Commons is equal to its 
 functions, and adequately reflects and expounds the wishes 
 and the principles of the nation, why Parliamentary Reform? 
 The indifferentism of the age is painfully illustrated in those 
 comments of immoral British journalism, which is craftily 
 careless of being more alert than its public. But the fact is 
 to be faced : that it is agreed that we have seen the last session 
 of the unreformed Reformed House of Commons ; and it is a 
 fitting period to ascertain where and what are those defects in 
 constitution and practice which demand the remedy of a 
 change equivalent to a revolution. Or is the defect simply in 
 the constitution, and not in the practice? Are we going to 
 have a revolution for the gratification of our theoretical 
 anxieties, in despite of the perfect practical success of a theo- 
 retically bad system? On this point, perhaps, the Queen 
 herself is unintentionally an authority. Her Majesty closed 
 this session with a speech from the throne unparalleled for the 
 variety and extent of its congratulation of Parliament and 
 country upon the actual work done : Her Majesty will open 
 next session with a speech from the throne, in which the pro- 
 minent paragraph will suggest the expediency of a considera- 
 
GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SESSION. 217 
 
 tion of certain measures framed for the purpose of remodelling 
 this strangely admirable House of Commons. Can Lord John 
 Russell expect that the inconsistency will escape his Queen ? 
 The whole nation must detect it ; and as it is a practical nation, 
 it maybe inclined to regard Lord John as a visionary politician, 
 risking the peace for the sake of his theories. 
 
 But there is no doubt this resource for a Ministry pledged 
 to a measure of Parliamentary Reform — they may repudiate 
 their speech from the throne, and laugh at the laudations of 
 their journals; and contend that the session has been an 
 infamous failure, and the Parliament an audacious sham. Not 
 to take some such course leaves them in a humiliating diffi- 
 culty, and strengthens incalculably the hands of those cynical 
 statesmen who are disposed to believe that good government 
 means as little government as possible, and that Parliaments 
 are good or bad, not in reference to their constitution and 
 origin, but in reference to the excellence or vice of the age in 
 which the Parliament is placed ; who, consequently, contrast- 
 ing the concluding declarations of this with the initiatory 
 demands of next session, will ridicule with effect Lord John 
 Russell's scheme on which Lord Aberdeen is now popularly 
 supposed to be brooding. This school of politicians had no 
 chance in 1792 and 1830 — the two eras of parliamentary 
 reform agitations: then they were the theorists, and their 
 assailants were the practical men. They argued that an 
 English House of Commons was simply an assembly of English 
 gentlemen, who, when they got together, whatever their sepa- 
 rate origins, would, of necessity, do just what any other 
 average meeting of English gentlemen would approve ; that is, 
 that inevitably the House of Commons would, in the end, 
 represent with admirable accuracy contemporaneous educated 
 public opinion : and some of them, even so late as 1830, 
 pushed their philosophy so far as to suggest that a good, a 
 practical, and a patriotic House of Commons could be obtained 
 out of an assembly exclusively nominated by the Crown. But 
 when the people said, irrespective of the theory, " We have no 
 faith in the House of Commons as at present constituted," it 
 obviously became indispensable to appease the people by a 
 change which should simulate a reform, — as in 1830. Now, 
 however, what is to resist the reasoning of that school which 
 disbelieves in the virtue that is to arise from closer contact 
 between mob and parliament ? The people are not demanding 
 a Reform : the popular journals see no faults in the career of 
 the session : Lord John Russell, therefore, committed by his 
 Queen's speech and his newspaper paeans, must, in February, 1854, 
 when he rises, — puts his elbows in his hands, and mentions 
 Hampden and Sidney, — meet the question — "Why should 
 there be a reform of Parliament ? Admitted that it is not a 
 
218 GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SESSION. 
 
 Parliament theoretically perfect in its constitution; that, 
 statistically, it does not represent the property, the intelli- 
 gence, and the population of the country, but only sections of 
 the property, species of the intelligence, and classes of the 
 population ; but what then — does it not work well ? At least 
 you told us so only last session." In anticipation of so 
 natural a controversy, admirers of Lord John Russell should 
 prepare materials to show that his last Queen's speech was a 
 complete mistake; that, as a summary of the session, it was a 
 wrong one. 
 
 But a similar contrast, — between ministerial satisfaction 
 with the past and ministerial intentions for the future, — is in 
 the session itself. Two sets of facts stand out prominent in 
 the session : it has been a session of Bribery Committees, and 
 the Budget. The Bribery Committees prove that any one can 
 buy his way into the House of Commons: and the Budget was 
 based on the Succession Duty Extension Bill — a bill which 
 annihilated class legislation, was the noblest, boldest, and most 
 truly national piece of recent legislation. Thus, villanous as 
 is the source, pure, so far, is the flow of the House of Com- 
 mons. Again: it was a session which commenced under the 
 influence of, in a House selected under the influence of, a cor- 
 rupt Tory Ministry; and at the end of the session we see 
 firmly seated (on a broad bottom) in power, a Ministry whose 
 distinction it is — the distinction of a coalition — that it is not a 
 party and not a class Government; but that it is a British 
 Government, pledged, in all it undertakes, to take a natio7ial 
 view. Can we reconcile these contradictions ; and, if we can, 
 would not the reconcilement be fatal to the vara avis which is 
 to result from our Premier's incubation 1 In fact, is not the 
 existence of a Coalition Government in itself an argument 
 against the cry of Parliamentary reform? In 1830, the 
 reform of Parliament was said to be required to restore a 
 balance ; to make provision for the representation of those 
 vast civic communities which had risen up since the beginning 
 of that war, which, nevertheless, we are ceaselessly told, ruined 
 England. A Reform Bill was required, it was also maintained 
 less publicly, to let the Whigs have their turn at power — the 
 Whigs having sided with the middle class against the country 
 class, and having, consequently, according to the Whigs, been 
 kept down by throne and peerage. But now ? The civic com- 
 munities are triumphant: they have carried the repeal of the 
 Corn Laws ; and they have got a representative Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer who has put legacy duty on real property, land 
 included. The Whigs have no complaint to make. Of the 
 twenty years which have elapsed since the passing of that 
 Reform Bill, which they drew up, they have been out of power 
 only five years, — in those fifteen years having fully rewarded 
 
GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SESSION. 219 
 
 and enriched their party and younger sons by Government 
 patronage ; and, at this moment, no more Whigs are left — Lord 
 John Russell having, with their consent, destroyed them. On 
 the other hand, there is no Tory party. Mr. Disraeli, who 
 abused Sir Robert Peel for disorganising it, has destroyed it. 
 Hence a coalition ; hence, in consequence, the apparent infeli- 
 city of the period selected for a suggestion of a Reform Bill. 
 A Coalition Government, including nearly all the reliable 
 statesmen of the day, represents the country: the House of 
 Commons supports the coalition ; — therefore the House of Com- 
 mons represents the country. Why, then, a Reform Bill ? 
 
 There is, perhaps, an argument left for the Reform Bill. 
 The middle classes now overmatch, or are, at least, fully equal 
 to, the aristocratic classes in the House of Commons : if they 
 hav'n't all their own way, it is simply because, little as Mr. 
 W^illiam Williams would suspect so simple a reason, they are 
 not entitled to have all their own way — the land and land- 
 lords being still a considerable portion of the wealth and intel- 
 ligence of this country. But, as between 1800 and 1832 there 
 grew up a great anti-aristocratic middle class, insisting, when 
 it ascertained its strength, on practical power, so between 1800 
 and 1853 there has grown up a great, intelligent, wealthy work- 
 ing-man class ; and this class is in no sense and in no degree 
 directly represented in the House of Commons. For this class, 
 to introduce into the " lobby " another community to struggle 
 with land and capital, a Reform Bill may be necessary. But 
 that can only be a theory. This class is not demanding a Re- 
 form Bill ; takes little interest in public affairs ; and would 
 not appreciate the contingent blessing contemplated by Lord 
 Aberdeen. It is a class which has lost its faith in the possible 
 blessings to be conferred by State interference — has lost this 
 faith only a few years after the passing of the Act which 
 cheapened bread and emancipated trade ; and so completely is 
 it understood and felt that our orators, and journalists, and 
 statesmen are not to appeal to the people, which won't listen, 
 but to "society" merely, which is interested, that, notwith- 
 standing the Coalition, nationality of aim and style are the 
 exception and not the rule in our speeches and leading articles — 
 which are addressed to an audience, not to a nation. This 
 class, which is no doubt the democracy Lord Derby gratuit- 
 ously undertook to put down — a St. George, who set out after 
 news had arrived of the death of the dragon — will even bear 
 patiently and unmurmuriugly the neglect, not to say the im- 
 pertinence of Parliament, when its in:^erests are concerned. 
 This is a year of strikes ; a year in which the working classes 
 have been intensely interested in the laws affecting combina- 
 tions in reference to wages ; and yet this democracy has not 
 uttered a word in complaint of the insolence of the law lords 
 
220 GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SESSION. 
 
 in the Upper House, and the indifference of country gentlemen 
 and capitalists in the Lower House in regard to that Combina- 
 tion of Workmen Bill which Mr. Drummond adopted from Mr. 
 Hume, and which contained the beginning of a candid politico- 
 economical legislation towards the artizan. With so enduring 
 a democracy, which seldom reads the debates, which laughs at 
 corruption and jokes the bribed, and which doesn't want votes, 
 not even being eager for their market value, so flourishing is 
 the enlightened democracy as to wages, why should a Coalition 
 Government precipitate a reform bill ? The capitalists, who 
 have most that they want, and the aristocracy, which, not 
 being led by Lord John Manners, cannot hope for allies in 
 fustian-jacket members, must decidedly think that Lord John 
 Russell is, as usual, energetic at precisely the wrong time. 
 Because what may, after all, be wanted is not a reform of Par- 
 liament, but a reform of the country. 
 
 Nevertheless, a survey of the session cannot fail to suggest, 
 that if Parliament is to be congratulated on what it has done, 
 Parliament is to be condoled with on what it has not done. 
 The Budget was a great measure ; it manifested, in its author, 
 a really able man, inevitably the future Premier ; and its facile 
 passage was honourable to the House of Commons. But 
 though we are a commercial country, we cannot please our- 
 selves with the belief that a session of nine months should be 
 devoted merely to the gestation of a single financial measure. 
 To test the completeness of the '^business" done in the course 
 of a session, we should — alas ! for an enlightened and highly- 
 civilised country, the investigation would be disheartening — 
 examine the prayers of the whole number of petitions pre- 
 sented, and then ascertain how many of all these alleged and 
 probably admitted grievances have been redressed. Or, as it is 
 the fashion in this constitutional land to sneer at petitions, we 
 could go over the list of " questions of the day," and observe 
 how many have been settled, or even responded to. Reduced 
 to such tests, sorry indeed are the results of the session, which 
 lasted from the autumn of 1852 into the autumn of 1853. We 
 saw the Budget passed, and we saw the India Bill bustled 
 through ; some customs reform : a cab unsettlement ; a wife- 
 mangier discouragement ; nationality in the mercantile navy 
 put down ; betting-houses put down to rise up again ; a few 
 grosser legal mischiefs partially remedied ; the voluntary prin- 
 ciple adopted — for Canada; transportation stopped — to Aus- 
 tralia, not to Milbank ; and that is all, literally all the results 
 of nine months' sittings. And of one in the list it is needful 
 to remind people that the India Bill was the bill of a bureau ; 
 that there was profound British indifference to Indian misrule ; 
 and that the bill only received the assent and approval of Par- 
 liament in the sense that Parliament staid away from all the 
 
GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SESSION. 221 
 
 petty committee discussions upon it. No doubt there have 
 been other "subjects" before Parliament. To go back: there 
 was much public advantage derived from the debating-society 
 sort of discussions which took place upon statute consolidation 
 and codification ; tests in the universities of Scotland and the 
 proper curricula for the universities of England ; salt monopoly 
 of the honest East India Company in India ; the smoke, filth, 
 and pestilence of this enlightened metropolis ; landlord villanies 
 in Ireland ; trustees' villanies in charitable institutions in 
 England ; families' rogueries in the ecclesiastical courts ; 
 bishops' rogueries in capitular and other estates; Jeranjee 
 Merjee and his amiable relative, Pestonjee Merjee ; the Baron de 
 Bode : magistrate recklessness with county rates ; Mr. Keogh's 
 veracity ; Lord John's sympathy with Jews ; Lord Hotham's 
 horror of M.P. judges (eliciting a great speech from Macaulay) ; 
 that pure and honest establishment, the Irish Church ; that 
 excellent and charitable system of church rates insisted on by 
 the Christian Establishment ; the tendency of lady abbesses 
 to starve and beat young nuns ; the honourable nature of 
 the Irish members (as sketched by Mr. Dufiy) ; the liberality of 
 Liberal Lord Palmerston, when foreign refugees have to be 
 annoyed and tortured to please Absolutist courts ; our Austra- 
 lian colonies; the virtues of the Duke of Wellington; the 
 ignorance of this enlightened country, as admitted by every 
 one, in urging Lord John to go on with an education scheme ; 
 and lastly, the scoundrelism of this enlightened country, as 
 admitted by every one in the course of the debates upon 
 bribery petitions, election committee reports, special commis- 
 sions, and new writs. Then, to conclude, can there be a 
 doubt that the highest national gain has been derived, in tjiie 
 way of instruction and increase of national self-respect, from 
 the repeated interrogatories of independent members, and the 
 as frequent explicit statements of Ministers, in 'regard to the 
 conduct of Great Britain in her protectorate of Turkey against 
 Russia ? Did not the whole of the negotiations, the manner of 
 conducting them, the candour with which they were confided 
 to us by our statesmen, and the happy and honourable issue, 
 fully demonstrate that we are a self-governed people, and that 
 we passionately insist upon the Christian policy of peace and 
 good-will in the East? Yet, balancing the results of the 
 session against the length of the session, is it not clear, grati- 
 fying as it has been to have our selected representatives talking 
 on all these mighty points, that it would have been better to hav^ 
 had less talk ; and if there could not be more actual work, at 
 least less time about so little 1 However, it is to be remembered, 
 that this has been a session remarkable for the disappearance 
 of the orators. A Coalition Government, which included all 
 the great statesmen, included, as a necessity — for this is a 
 
222 GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SESSION. 
 
 country in which, in addition to being a sage, you must be an 
 actor — ^nearly all the great orators; and the Treasury benches 
 are not often favourable to the graces of elocution, and to the 
 exercitations of declamatory genius. And, unfortunately, the 
 lucrative taciturnity of the crack debaters silenced by place 
 and their awful sense of responsibility — which crushes even 
 Bemal Osborne — has not been compensated for by the activity 
 of the Opposition. Mr. Disraeli has looked an armoury of 
 daggers, but spoken seldom : having no policy and no party, he 
 resorted to that wisdom so usual and so appropriate to men in 
 a quandary — he bided his time. Sir John Pakington rarely 
 summed up to the jury, which he ever believes to be before 
 him ; Mr. Walpole only once got a chance of delivering a 
 sermon, and he was irreverently laughed at for his pains. 
 Lord Stanley, ingenuous young man, thought that if he was to 
 be a Conservative it was his business to conserve something — so 
 he selected church rates. 
 
 If in a week or two we have not altogether forgotten the 
 session, placidly reposing in our constitutional recess, which 
 was invented by our ancestors for good reasons, but is main- 
 tained by ourselves for none, we shall remember it only for one 
 feature, that it was the session in which Parliament and people 
 alike confessed — a confession apart from the question of Par- 
 liamentary Reform — that the House of Commons is elected by 
 a constituency, two-thirds of which are utterly base and cor- 
 rupt : the proofs of that baseness and corruption being ample 
 and complete. And, remembering this remarkable fact, we 
 shall wonder at the easy, happy, confidence we have placed so 
 long, and are likely so long to continue to place, in that as- 
 sembly; and we shall also wonder, perhaps, at our own pro- 
 found conviction that we are an enlightened nation, far away at 
 the head of the world's civilisation. But no doubt we are very 
 practical ; we are content with our constitution ; and so satis- 
 fied with our self-government that we are rejoicing at the 
 prospect of having no control whatever over the Government 
 until next February. 
 
 London : Printed by Woodfall and Kinder, Angel Court, Skinner Street. 
 
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